Xtbc TUnlpersft^ of Cbicago 



Itandardization of Tests for 
Defective Children 



A DISSERTATION 



■M. '1 ! I ! I i 1 ■ .hi . . 
OF THF 

;i;ai)i A n - I'^-di -i v, i ^\i> literature 

IN I'ANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OK 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OK EDTTATTON 



RY 

CT.ARA SCHMITT 

v.n4 



PuRLif^HED AS Whole Number 83 of the 
Psychological MoNOaRAPHs 



Ubc TUnlpcrsit^ ot Cbicaoo 



Standardization of Tests for 
Defective Children 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE 

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 



BY 

CLARA SCHMITT 
1914 



Published as Whole Number 83 of the 
Psychological Monographs 



Gift 
The UnlTersj^ 







ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

For whatever is of value in this work the author is indebted to 
many persons. It is not possible to mention them in a para- 
graph. In a very special sense the author wishes to express 
gratitude to the following : 

The Juvenile Psychopathic Institute and the director of its 
clinic, Dr. William Healy. 

Mrs. Mary Chapin White, formerly psychologist of the 
Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic, for help in giving some of the tests. 

To the principal and teachers of the private school where the 
Healy-Fernald tests were given. These teachers gave freely of 
their time and enthusiastic encouragement. It is regretted that 
the policy of the school regarding publicity prevents a more defin- 
ite acknowledgment of this service. 

To the principals and teachers of the public schools where data 
was obtained. 

To Dr. Charles H. Judd and Dr. Frank N. Freeman of the 
University of Chicago for helpful and patient guidance as teach- 
ers before this work was undertaken, and for suggestion and 
criticism during its construction. 

To the children who so cheerfully and trustfully did their best. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Introduction ^ 

II. Historical development of tests of mental measur- 

ment in correlation with general intelligence 3 

III. Binet-Simon tests 16 

IV. Fallacies and inadequacies of the Binet-Simon series 52 

V. Discussion of Binet-Simon tables 68 

VI. Standardization and discussion of Healy-Fernald 

tests ^i 

VII. Correlation of three tests with school grade 124 

VIII. Individual reactions to Healy-Fernald tests 129 

IX. Summary of Standardization of Healy-Fernald tests 133 

X. School subjects as material for tests of mental ability 137 

XI. Factors involved in the mental classification of clinic 

cases ^^4 

XII. Qualitative classification of tests "^77 

XIII. Bibliography i^o 



INTRODUCTION 

The following study was undertaken to provide data for the 
standardization of the Healy-Fernald tests, described by the 
authors in Psychological Monographs, Vol. XIII, No. 2. It is 
offered because a standarization of these tests has been asked for 
by various persons interested in the development of clinical 
psychology. It is hoped that the study will also suggest some 
further clinical uses of the Binet-Simon series. The purpose of 
standardization is to show the reactions of a socially homogeneous 
group of individuals considered socially and pedogogically 
normal, classified according to certain principles discussed below. 

The psychological considerations which underlie the author's 
classified evaluation of these tests has been found of value in 
clinics where the mentally defective must be distinguished from 
the mentally normal, and classified for the purposes of instruc- 
tion in the public school and for placing in public institutions. 
It is hoped that the formulation of the principles which have led to 
such classifications may prove to be suggestive to those seeking 
further light on the process of mental diagnosis. 

The study is offered, however, with a due appreciation of its 
incompleteness. It is desirable that a hundred or more children 
of each age and grade of the school should be given the tests dis- 
cussed in the following pages, rather than the twenty which it 
was possible to get. But, though the numbers are small, they are 
sufficient to show clearly marked tendencies to specific types of 
reaction for the various grades and ages tested. 

This work was done by the author while psychologist to the 
Juvenile Psychopathic Institute. This organization maintains a 
clinic at the Juvenile Court of Chicago. Wherever in this work 
"the clinic" is mentioned it is this clinic to which reference is 
made. 

Much that is said in this study concerning mental tests in gen- 



2 CLARA SCHMITT 

eral and concerning many of the individual tests is the result of a 
body of experience gained in the clinic just mentioned and a 
further year's experience in the clinic of the Department of Child 
Study of the Board of Education of Chicago. Much of this 
experience is not amenable to statistical classification. The par- 
ticular bit of work which is here used for standardization of the 
Healy-Femald tests is especially suitable for this purpose because 
it is gained from a group of socially homogeneous subjects. 

The work of the Juvenile Court clinic is entirely with the juven- 
ile delinquent; and except for this one characteristic that group 
of cases is not homogeneous. The work in the Department of 
Child Study is with children who for some reason are reacting 
unsatisfactorily to the school situation. This group of subjects 
is far from homogeneous mentally, physically and socially. 

Since one of the reasons for atypical social response may be 
mental defectiveness, the reaction of what has come to be ac- 
cepted by the users of these tests as mentally defective response 
has been compared with the mentally normal for each test. The 
factors which enter into consideration in classifying as mentally 
defective are discussed on page 164. 

Subjects. — The children who served as subjects for the tests 
comprised the kindergarten and first six grades of a private 
school in Chicago. These children composed as perfectly homo- 
geneous a group as it is probably possible to find in a school. 
They were the children of people of the professional class mainly. 
A few were children of successful business men who sought the 
best obtainable type of education for their children. The school 
was founded for the purpose of putting into application the broad- 
est and best conceptions of educational theory and practice. 

So far as heredity in its relation to social class is concerned 
these children were equally endowed. Home environment with 
reference to educational endowment and stimulus was uniform 
as nearly as such a matter may be measured. One may assume 
that the children who belonged to the same grade had had the 
some educational regime in home and school. 



II 

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TESTS OF MENTAL 

MEASUREMENT IN CORRELATION WITH 

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE 

Psychologists have for some twenty years been concerned 
with finding a measure of general intelligence. Work with dif- 
ferent types of tests under more or less rigorously controlled 
laboratory conditions has been carried on with children of dif- 
ferent classes and with college students, graded in one way or an- 
other according to degrees of general intelligence. Within the 
last ten years there has arisen the need of application of the work 
of the laboratory psychologist to the practical work of clinics 
for investigation of socially atypical individuals. In the United 
States and other countries the criminal, the mentally defective, the 
backward school child and the supernormal child are being inves- 
tigated with greater thoroughness than ever before. To meet 
this need there have been devised and invented tests for measur- 
ing mental ability of a type quite different from the tests devised 
by the early laboratory psychologists who worked at the prob- 
lem. A short historical survey will serve to characterize the 
two groups of practical tests discussed in this article. 

Only a part of the great mass of literature on tests of general 
intelligence is outlined in the following summary, namely, that 
part which endeavors to establish a measure for the general 
intelligence of children. 

In 1897 the American Psychological Association (i) received 
the report of a committee appointed at its previous meeting to 
investigate the subject of physical and mental tests. This com- 
mittee agreed upon and reported a series of tests which it recom- 
mended be tried on college students in the various psychological 
laboratories of the country. The physical and mental tests recom- 
mended were classified as follows : 



4 CLARA SCHMITT 

Preliminary Data. — Date of birth; birthplace; birthplace, of 
father, birthplace of mother; occupation, including class in col- 
lege; occupation of father; any measure previously made. Color 
of eyes; color of hair; right or left handed. Mother's maiden 
name; number of brothers; sisters; order of birth; age of parents 
at birth; birthplace and occupation of grandparents. Assymetry 
of body; color of eyes, hair, complexion; degeneracy or other 
stigma of head, eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, hands, feet, posture; gait; 
manners; coordination and speech; indications of intellectual, 
emotional and moral characteristics. 

Physical Measurements. — Height, weight, and size of head. 
Breathing capacity. Height sitting. 

Keenness of lAsion 

Color vision 

Keenness of hearing 

Perception of pitch 

Fineness of touch 

Sensitiveness to pain 

Perception of weight or force of movement 

Dynamometer pressure of right and left hand 

Rate of movement 

Fatigue 

Will power 

Voluntary attention 

Right and left hand movement 

Rapidity of movement. — Taps on telegraph, short marks, tril- 
ling with two fingers or five. 

Accuracy of aim 

Reaction time for sound 

Reaction time with choice. — Card sorting 

Rate and discrimination of movement. — Marking out lOO a's 
in 500 letters, one of a number of geometrical figures, or colors, 
or pictures, or objects. 

Quickness of distinction and movement. — Rate at which cards 
are sorted, combine with reaction, with choice, with effects of 
practice. 

Perception of size. — Draw a line equal to a model 5 cm. in 
length, bisect it, erect a perpendicular of the same length, and 
bisect the right hand angle. 

Perception of time. — The accuracy with which a standard time 
can be reproduced. 

Memory. — The accuracy with which eight numerals heard once 
can be reproduced, and the accuracy with which a line drawn by 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 5 

the observer at the beginning of the hour can be reproduced at 
the end of the hour; Hne to be identified, not drawn; ten numer- 
als ; nine numerals. A combined test of memory, association and 
finding time as described in the catalogue of the Columbian Ex- 
position, accuracy of observation and recollection as proposed 
by Cattell and Bolton. 

Memory type. — Variation in the use of ten numerals, compare 
results for indication of memory type and kind of imagery 
preferred. 

Apperception test of Ebbinghaus 

Imagery 

Much, and more than was here recommended, of this work was 
done in the next few years, and the attempt was made to corre- 
late the results with other evidences of general intelligence. 

Before this time, however, some very important pieces of work 
had been done. One of these was the work of Gilbert (2) in 
1894. Gilbert correlated weight, height, lung capacity, simple 
reaction time, reaction time with discrimination and choice, and 
time memory with mental ability. In determining general mental 
ability the teacher's judgment was relied upon. Each teacher 
classified her pupils as bright, average and dull. Approximately 
100 children of each age group from six to seventeen were 
measured. 

Porter (3), in 1893, correlated the height and weight of 33,500 
school children with age and grade. 

Later Smedley (4), in 1900, correlated height, standing and 
sitting; weight; ergograph and dynamometer records, and lung 
capacity with age and school standing of children between the 
ages of eight and eighteen inclusive. 

West (5) correlated physical development and intellectual abil- 
ity of Toronto school children. His method of grouping for in- 
tellectual ability was according to the teacher's estimate of the 
children as good, average, and poor. 

The investigations of the men mentioned and others gave rise 
to three different conclusions with regard to the relation of 
physical development and mental ability. Porter, Smedley and 
some others found a positive correlation between physical develop- 
ment and mental ability of which success in school life was taken 



6 CLARA SCHMITT 

as the measure. Gilbert found no correlation and West found a 
negative correlation. These differences were probably due to 
different arrangement of data and to different methods of group- 
ing grades of intellectual ability. Gilbert did not separate the 
sexes in his tables and did not state the proportions of his dull 
and bright groups. Gilbert and West classified according to the 
teacher's judgment; Porter and Smedley according to school 
grade with reference to age. A severe criticism of the method 
of classification according to teacher's judgment may be quoted 
from West's account of his experience with it : 

"It soon became apparent to me that any such classification of 
children's mental ability would be very greatly influenced by the 
mental caliber of the teacher making the classification. . . . 
There were no poor scholars. The teachers were perfectly willing 
to classify the scholars as of good and average intelligence but 
any intimation of poor or stupid scholars was taken as a personal 
reflection upon the teacher of the class in question. . . . The 
poor students were no more than a mere handful." 

The method of grouping according to success in school life, 
the method of Porter and Smedley, grades all children of the 
same age according to the same standard. Though some allow- 
ance must be made for a small group compelled by individual cir- 
cumstances to residence in grades below that of which the mental 
ability of each individual might otherwise permit. 

In the reaction time tests Gilbert thought to have found 
a correlation with intelligence. He says, "The curves for reaction 
time gave the most positive results showing that the brighter the 
child the more quickly he is able to act. In discrimination 
the same relation is true but to a less degree. ... Of time 
memory it may be said in general that the brighter the child the 
more accurate his sense of time." An examination of Gilbert's 
tables, however, fails to support so optimistic a view of the exist- 
ing correlation. At some ages the dull class is superior to the 
bright class, and the differences between the three classes meas- 
ured are everywhere slight. 

Reaction time tests of various kinds were tried out by various 
investigators in the following years. The results of this work 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 7 

were reviewed by Whipple (6) in 1904. He distinguished be- 
tween two kinds of reaction time experiment, the laboratory type, 
and the anthropometric type which includes card sorting and sim- 
ilar tests. The former consists of work done under rigid labora- 
tory conditions upon subjects competent to make introspective 
analyses. The latter consists of experiments made on children or 
others without introspective analyses and without practice in di- 
reaction of attention. He pointed out that because different ex- 
perimenters obtained widely varying results under the same 
conditions, attention came to be directed to the different types of 
individuals, and the reaction time experiment came to be an ex- 
periment in reaction consciousness. The anthropometric type of 
experiment he criticised, because the conditions under which the 
data were supplied, were so loosely controlled that one could 
not be sure what was measured. He concludes that any reaction 
time is conditioned upon a large number of independent factors 
and when these are eliminated or controlled in the laboratory "we 
have left no residuum of individual variation that can be turned 
to account in estimating the observer's general intelligence or 
mental ability." 

In 1901 Wissler (7) pubHshed the results of a long series of 
tests and anthropometrical measurements made under the direc- 
tion of Cattell upon students of Columbia University for a period 
of seven years. The results of these tests were correlated with 
class standing. The general conclusions were that the laboratory 
mental tests show little correlation in the case of college students ; 
that the physical tests show a general tendency to correlate with 
themselves but only to a very slight degree with mental tests; 
that the markings of students in college classes correlate with 
themselves to a considerable degree but not with the tests made 
in the laboratory. 

Griffing (8), 1895, and others investigated the subject of at- 
tention with reference to general intelligence. In general some 
form of the tachistoscope was used. Griffing's conclusions rep- 
resent the general concensus of opinion among these investigators. 
He said, "I found that those rated 'A' for mental capacity by the 
teachers on an A B C basis, had somewhat higher averages than 



8 CLARA SCHMITT 

the others. . . . There are, however, marked exceptions. . . . Those 
marked 'A' by their teachers for attention in class also excelled 
the others, but here also I found decided exceptions. Many- 
pupils must have, therefore, good powers of attention, even when 
they show no evidence of them to their teachers." 

In 1904 Spearman (9) made a critical analysis of the methods 
of work in the determination of correlations of various tests with 
general intelligence. With a more exact mathematical formula 
for the calculation of correlations and by the use of more factors 
for the determination of general intelligence he found large corre- 
lations in tests of discrimination of grays, and weight and pitch, 
with general intelligence. 

In 1909 Burt (10) correlated the general intelligence of 
two sets of English schoolboys with tests of discrimination of two 
points upon the skin, of lifted weights, of pitch, and of length 
of lines. To these he added two motor tests, tapping and card 
dealing; two sensori-motor tests, card sorting and alphabet find- 
ing; tests of immediate memory of concrete words, abstract 
words and nonsense syllables ; the tracing of a geometrical pat- 
tern seen in a mirror, a test of the power to acquire new co- 
ordinations; the reproduction from memory of a pattern of 
spots presented by the tachistoscope upon squared paper; and a 
test of voluntary attention, which consisted of pricking an 
irregular line of dots passing rapidly before the subject. 

Great care was exercised by Burt, in accordance with the 
recommendations of Spearman, in the mathematical work of 
correlating the test findings with general intelligence. The latter 
was estimated by the headmasters of the schools from which the 
reagents came. The conclusions at which Burt arrived are as 
follows : 

Of the simple sensory tests, tactile, weight, pitch, and length 
of line discrimination, he says, "There appears to be no general 
connection between intelligence and capacity to discriminate 
weights ; any connections between intelligence and tactile dis- 
crimination, if it exists, is of the slightest; there is considerable 
connection between intelligence and capacity to discriminate 
undoubted general connection between intelligence and visual 
discrimination of lengths. ..." 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 9 

Of the motor tests, tapping and card dealing he says : "Motor 
tests seem to have a higher correlation with intelligence than 
sensory tests. But where rapidity is due to frequent practice. . . 
the correlations with intelligence and other tests are reduced, 
abolished, or inverted. Thus so far as motor rapidity is the func- 
tion of temporary 'facilitation' of the paths of neural discharge 
it appears also to be a function of intelligence, while so far as it is 
a function of permanent 'canalisation' of those paths it is but 
slightly or inversely related to intelligence." This latter con- 
clusion was the result of disturbance of correlational results 
among a group of practiced card players. 

Of the two sensori-motor tests, one for the sorting of cards 
according to color, the other for selecting a complete alphabet 
from a mixture of two alphabets, Burt says : "Depending as they 
do for their perfomiance upon processes of a more complex 
nature and a higher mental level, tests combining perception 
with motor reaction seem to involve the intelligence to a still 
higher degree than relatively simple sensory or motor tests. Of 
the two above discussed the alphabet seems to be, in practice, far 
the more efficient." 

Immediate memory was tested by the use of sets of words of 
abstract significance, of concrete significance; and nonsense 
syllables. The correlation with general intelligence found by 
Burt between concrete memory, abstract memory, and nonsense 
memory was .58, .48, .43 respectively for one group of boys and 
.84, .78, .75 for another group. "Thus the memory for abstract 
words does not show a higher, but a lower correlation, with intel- 
ligence. . . . The introduction of difficult vocables, whether ab- 
stract nouns or meaningless syllables, proves in both groups to 
be on the whole a distracting element." 

In the mirror test, a pattern is traced which, with the hand 
doing the work, is seen only in a mirror. This tests the subject's 
ability to readjust certain already learned eye and hand coordina- 
tions to a changed situation. Burt found many difficulties in 
the mechanical operation of this test as well as in the method of 
measuring results. In his judgment it was a test which with 
further perfection would be of great practical value. He, how- 



lo CLARA SCHMITT 

ever, sums up the factors which would compHcate and make 
uncertain the resuhs of this test in practice when he accounts for 
the divergence between his two groups of the correlational fig- 
ures, .67 and .54. "The divergence between the two schools is 
largely due to the fact that four of the Preparatory schoolboys 
had had previous practice at an analogous task in the form of a 
not very common parlor pastime. Only one of the thirty Elemen- 
tary boys had done any similar exercise before. The divergence 
might also be in part attributed to a greater familiarity with 
the use of the mirror among boys of a higher class as compared 
with boys of a lower status. A similar factor apparently operated 
when the test was applied to children of the opposite sex, though 
subsequent application to very young children, and to adults, 
have led me to wonder whether we are not dealing with one of 
the uninvestigated innate differences between the sexes." 

The spot pattern test was given in a dark room by means of a 
tachistoscope. The pattern was shown as many times as it was 
necessary for the subject to learn to reproduce it correctly. The 
difficulties in the use of the tachistoscope in practical work are 
indicated when he says, "The tachistoscope was found to require 
a larger amount of experience on the part of both subjects and 
operators, than any of the other tests, except perhaps those in- 
volving sensory discrimination. . . . The first series of all had to 
be rejected as worthless, owing partly to the irrelevant excite- 
ment aroused in the subjects by the 'electrical flash' as the boys 
named it. . . . At this school we were not able to obtain the 
complete darkness and silence procured at the other in our ex- 
temporised dark room, and consequently the reliability coefficient 
and the raw correlations with intelligence are not so high." The 
coefficient obtained was .y6 and .75 for the two groups. 

Burt's test of sustained attention consisted of pricking dots 
irregularly arranged upon a strip of paper which passed before 
the subject. The number of dots per minute which the student 
marked constituted a measure of his ability. The correlation for 
this test with general intelligence was found to be .75 and .96 
for the two groups of boys. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS ii 

Of the practical significance of these tests Burt says : "Of the 
twelve tests six furnish coefficients below .50 and six above .50. 
The former six — the simple sensory and motor tests — are thus 
of little use in the empirical diagnosis of intelligence. Among 
the latter six, no single test, at any rate in its present form, can 
be claimed as a self-sufficient instrument for measuring and 
detecting ability in individuals. But they indicate the direction 
in which such a test may hopefully be sought. . . . McDougall's 
dotting machine seems to be the most scientific. Where the 
external conditions could be kept most uniform, . . . both the 
amalgamated and the average raw coefficients reached .84. Such 
uniformity is difficult in more extensive work, and the ensuing 
variety in attention and fatigue affect the performances with this 
test. Moreover, its figures are less discriminative than either of 
the other three. By increasing the number of spots in the 
pattern the tachistoscope test may be made to differentiate with 
almost any degree of minuteness. . . . It is a slow test, however, 
and without repetition scarcely reliable. And it calls for some 
experience both on the part of the boys to grasp the nature of 
the task, and on the part of the experimenter to manipulate 
the apparatus with regularity. . . . The mirror test can be pro- 
cured with but little trouble and expense, and needs no trained 
superintendent. It, too, requires further improvements, espe- 
cially in procedure and calculations, to eliminate the influence of 
possible previous practice, and to elicit more completely the sig- 
nificance of the figures observed. If called upon to recommend 
a simple test for immediate use upon untrained subjects, I should 
be inclined to advocate the alphabet test as perhaps the simplest 
and most satisfactory test of all." 

The work of Burt has been so fully recorded because it is the 
broadest and most careful attempt to correlate the results of tests 
with general intelligence. In this work many considerations were 
taken into account in constructing a scale of general intelligence 
of the subjects. Great care was taken in the management of 
the tests themselves aridi the mathematical correlations were 
worked out with accuracy. The conclusions drawn of the vari- 



12 CLARA SCHMITT 

ous tests are valuable from the standpoint of an interpretation 
of intelligence. For various reasons, however, the results can 
not be immediately applied to clinical work. The reasons may- 
be grouped under five heads. 

The first and most important is the measurement of the tests 
against time. It is the experience of the writer and others 
in the work of children's clinics that time within the limits of 
rigid laboratory procedure can not be taken as the measure of 
the subject's ability with a particular test. This is because of 
the peculiar demands of such a clinic. One wishes the child 
to be unaffected by any feelings of fear or anxiety or strange- 
ness with the situation when he comes up for examination. As 
far as possible he should not know that he is being examined. 
He, therefore, should not be subjected to the anxious desire 
to make good time in any thing he is doing. There are few 
tests which can at all lend themselves to such measurement, 
since in any test which can be useful as a measure of intelligence 
or which can show the child's intelligence functioning, there 
are involved perceptual or other types of discrimination which 
may be interfered with if the child anxiously desires to make 
a good time record. This interference with thought processes 
may cause the final result to be a misleading and perhaps unfair 
judgment of his general intelligence. Only such discriminations 
as are habitual with him and therefore make little demand upon 
attention can be measured against time. Under such circum- 
stances one does not know what is being measured. 

The second reason for the impracticabihty of Burt's work is 
the fact that with tests which correlate most highly with gen- 
eral intelligence, the use of apparatus is necessary. Burt, him- 
self, showed how the tachistoscope mechanism interfered with 
attention to the object of the test itself. In much larger meas- 
ure would such a piece of apparatus be a stumbling block in 
a clinic where defective individuals are examined. As was 
remarked above, one wishes the child to be unaffected by any 
feelings of fear or strangeness with the new and usually strange 
situation into which he is thrust when he comes to a psychological 
clinic for examination. A piece of strange apparatus will so 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS I3 

fill his mind with fear or speculation as to its object and its 
affect upon himself, that he may not act normally. The fact 
also that much practice is needed on the part of the subject 
to use a piece of apparatus must put it out of consideration 
for the practical clinician. 

The third reason for discarding some of these tests is that 
previous practice may vitiate results. What Burt has said 
with regard to the mirror test and card dealing test has already 
been quoted. No tests except those on reading, arithmetic or 
other subjects of cultural value can be used in a practical clinic 
which in any way may have been the subject of practice on 
the part of the child, and these only if the examiner knows the 
extent of the child's experience with them. 

The fourth point of error in applying the work of Burt, 
and all other works of its type, to the examination of atypical 
children is that it does not take into account the child's motive 
for action. In child life there are in general two motives for 
voluntary activity. One of these is the play motive, in which 
the child voluntarily seeks the end to be attained. The other is 
the social motive of pleasing associates, who may demand ends 
which he would not voluntarily seek to attain. In a psyscho- 
logical laboratory the motives of the adult subject and the 
observer are the same, — the production of scientific data. In 
such case the subject lends himself willingly to any conditions 
imposed. Knowing the end of the experiment he is able to 
direct attention to the attainment of that end and away from 
the distracting elements of unusual conditions. It is otherwise 
with the child. With him the motive most conducive to natural 
reaction, uncomplicated by disturbing emotions, is the play 
motive. 

The fifth reason for the lack of apphcability of this type 
of work to a practical clinic is that it has been done with 
subjects of so high a type of mentality that the results are of 
little value in measuring low types. A mathematical statement 
of the correlations of a test to the general ability of such 
subjects as form the reagents for experiments under laboratory 
conditions can have little significance in a clinic for defective 



14 CLARA SCHMITT 

or abnormal individuals. The subjects for laboratory experi- 
ments are in general of a high type of intelligence. Among 
Burt's subjects there was only one defective child. In a clinic 
no child typical of the average in the social situation in which 
he finds himself, ever comes up for examination. Necessarily 
in some realm of social, mental or physical functioning, the 
child to be examined is abnormal or he would not be brought 
for examination. 

A part of Burt's work, however, can be of greater value 
for clinic purposes than his correlations led him to believe. 
Such simple sensori-motor tests as card sorting, or as Whipple 
designated them, the anthropometrical reaction tests, have been 
found by him and other laboratory experimenters to correlate 
little with general intelligence. The reason for this is that 
even with the least intelligent subjects these tests fall well 
within the limit of their intelligence, and, therefore, can not 
form a measure of the mental ability of those particular sub- 
jects. With many subjects of the practical clinic, however, 
such simple tests may be of great value. If it is found that 
the child can do nothing more complex than sort cards according 
to color or geometrical form, or whatever type of discrimination 
is employed, this, in part at least, establishes a measure of his 
mental ability. If it is found that he can not do even these 
tests then others of a simpler nature still must be used as a 
measure. 

Viewed from the standpoint of such use, the simple "anthro- 
pometrical reaction" tests are of great value as measures of 
certain elements of general intelligence. For use in a practical 
clinic any test may serve as a measure, in whole or in part, if 
it really does mark off a range of intellectual activity. However, 
no test can be of such general use as Burt thought possible of 
the alphabet sorting test which he considered most valuable as 
a test of mental measurement. The highly intelligent child 
can accomplish tests of far greater complexity; the low grade 
child may be unable to make such fine discriminations. This 
test, therefore can not serve as a measure of these two grades 
of mental ability. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS I5 

To sum up, the clinic must discard time for the most part 
as an important factor in the measurement of results. This 
point is discussed further below in connection with certain tests. 
Some other measure, preferably a qualitative one, must be sub- 
stituted for this quantitative one. The clinic must discard 
rigorous laboratory conditions and adjust its tests to conditions 
more in conformity with those of everyday life. It must dis- 
card such apparatus as requires practice on the part of the 
siibject, or as is not directly connected with the object of the 
test. 

It was such considerations as the foregoing which led Binet 
and Simon in 1904 to compile the series of tests which have 
since been rearranged and modified into the series of 191 1 (11 )• 
In 1904 it was required that the mentally defective children in 
the public schools of Paris be segregated after individual ex- 
amination. Binet, who had contributed in large measure through 
his laboratory experiments to the psychology of mental tests 
and mental measurement, undertook to arrange a series of 
tests capable of practical application to young children. These 
tests eliminated to a large extent, the quantitative measurement 
of results and substituted a qualitative measure. The require- 
ment of laboratory conditions was discarded in favor of a situa- 
tion more in accord with the normal every day life of the child. 



Ill 

THE BINET-SIMON TESTS 

This series of tests marks the real beginning of the applica- 
tion of psychological tests to the practical work of discriminating 
defectives from normal human beings. Binet revised his first 
scale in 1908. In this form it was used largely by many ex- 
perimenters in Europe and America. Later, in 191 1, taking 
account of the criticism arising from these experiences with 
his scale, Binet again made a revision. Several experimenters 
have added materially to our knowledge of the usefulness of 
this series of tests under the conditions of practical work. 
Bobertag (12) has made a thorough analysis of the psychologi- 
cal significance of each test and applied the series to a group 
of German children. Goddard (13) applied it to four hundred 
feeble-minded children of the Vineland School for the feeble- 
minded, and to two thousand public school children. Kuhlman 
(14) used the tests in the institution for the feeble-minded at 
Faribault, Minnesota. Terman and Childs (15) applied the 
tests to a large group of normal children in California and sug- 
gested certain revisions and additions to them. 

In the following discussion it is hoped to show something 
of the psychological significance of the individual tests of this 
series and its value in clinical work. Only so much of the 
description of each test and its application is given as will 
indicate the nature of the test. In some cases a more elaborate 
statement will be given where the author suggests a wider use 
of certain tests than that recommended by Binet. The dis- 
cussion begins with the tests for five years because the writer's 
clinical experience with children under five years of age has 
been small. 

Children of Five Years 

I. Compare two weights."^ — Four boxes in sets of two are 
used. They are the same in appearance and volume and weigh 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 17 

respectively, three grams and twelve grams; six grams and 
fifteen grams. The first two are placed on the table before the 
child and he is asked to lift them both and hand to the ex- 
perimenter the one which is the heavier. This tests the child's 
ability to compare two sensations and form a judgment concern- 
ing them. The test is concerned with the ability of the subject 
to make such comparison and not at all with the keenness of 
his discrimination of differences of weight. The subject must 
also exhibit ability to interpret and classify his sensations in 
language. In the tenth year when -weights are arranged in serial 
order the later test deals more with sensory discrimination. 

Bobertag points out the interesting significance of correspond- 
ence of this psychological procedure with the highest intellectual 
accomplishments in science and practical life. A quantity of 
sensations are presented to the individual under normal life 
conditions, and these are arranged in certain classifications of 
dift'erent kinds. In this way order is established in the mental 
life. To be able to isolate in consciousness one type of sensa- 
tion from all others and to arrange its variations in a serial 
order from little to great is the first necessity of conscious 
intellectual life. 

Defective children will hand to the experimenter the one 
which happens to be the most convenient to pick up, or will 
do nothing at all because of lack of comprehension of the 
problem. 

II. Copies a square. — To pass this test the subject must com- 
mand three abilities. First, the comprehension of the square 
as such, a perceptual discrimination. The same type of dis- 
crimination is tested with the Seguin form board and sorting 
cards. Second, the muscular control necessary to make lines 
of equal length or approximately so; and third, the ability to 
cooperate the two foregoing processes for the production of 
the final result. If the test is not passed it may mean that the 
child has not a comprehension of the distinguishing character- 
istics of the model before him, or it may mean that he has not 

* The descriptions of tests follow the translation by Town." The Binet 
quotations are from the same source. 



i8 CLARA SCHMITT 

the motor control which will enable him to draw a model which 
he recognizes, or he has not made the requisite mental coopera- 
tion. Binet directs that the child be required to copy the square 
with ink, not pencil. This direction would indicate that the 
test was intended to be one of motor control as well as one of 
intellectual comprehension, since the use of the pen adds a 
motor difficulty. 

The writer has seen defective children who were able to 
distinguish a square from a circle, or some other form, as was 
shown in the card sorting test in which cards were sorted ac- 
cording to the geometrical forms upon them; but were unable 
to initiate the process of step three sufficiently well to draw a 
recognizable copy of the model. Their copy was a mere scribble. 

There also come to the clinic children suffering from nervous 
derangements, who cannot control the hands sufficiently to draw 
a straight or approximately straight line, or draw one of the 
length desired, and who therefore also fail to make right angles ; 
but who, it seems evident from other tests which they pass, 
and especially from the dissatisfaction which they show with 
the result of their efforts with this one possess the two other 
abilities necessary. 

III. Repeat a sentence of ten syllables. — Binet says of 
this test, "After the comprehension of words, the next step in the 
development of language is not, as one might think, the verbal 
expression of thought and the naming of desired objects, but 
a repetition of words heard. It is easier, approximately, to 
echo a word than to use it independently, to pass from an 
idea to a word." In giving this test one says to the child, "I 
shall now say something to which you must listen carefully 
and then say it just exactly as I do." Binet permits no error 
whatever in the reproduction of the sentences. The series of 
sentences given by Binet are : 

I am cold and hungry. 

My name is Gaston. Oh! the naughty dog. 

Let us go for a long walk. Give me the pretty little bonnet. 

Bobertag uses the following list : 
I am a good child. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS i? 

I have a pretty dog. 
I sit upon a chair. 
My brother has gone away. 
I will go to visit my father tomorrow. 
I have bought myself a new suit.. 
We have not yet done our school work. 
Now we will go together to take a walk. 
I have said to my brother that he should visit me. 
When we have done our work then we may play. 
Bobertag grades these from 6 to i6 syllables. The English 
translation makes the number of syllables in some cases sHghtly 
different. In such sentences as Bobertag's the writer finds a 
certain advantage over those of Binet. With the Binet set one 
necessarily drops the voice and pauses at the end of the short 
sentences, which constitute the set of ten syllables or more, 
and the child, on the qui vive to reproduce immediately, begins 
to do so as soon as he hears the drop of the voice, or the pause, 
not realizing that the set is not yet finished. There is probably 
a difference in the memory process of the two types of sentences. 
Binet assumes that the child does not attend to the idea but only 
to the words and reproduces them. The Binet sets contain more 
than one idea. That the process of remembering the sentence 
which is used for the expression of one idea, such as those of 
Bobertag, is easier than that of remembering a sentence of the 
same number of syllables which expresses two or more ideas 
is indicated by the fact that Binet found the five-year old 
child generally able to remember no more than a sentence of ten 
syllables, but Bobertag found that sentences of sixteen syllables 
were not too difficult. 

IV. Counts four pennies.— This test shows whether or 
not the child has learned this series of four terms and has 
related the terms of the series to four like objects. Children 
may learn the counting series without relating it to anything; 
that is, without ever counting anything. General observation 
shows this to be the case with young children. A child of 
four, who could count to five as a mere word series, was observed 



20 CLARA SCHMITT 

by the writer to make for himself the discovery that he could 
relate this series to five objects; upon the first occasion his five 
toes. To count something, then, is a step in advance of merely 
counting. Defective young children in the schools relate the 
counting series imperfectly, or not at all, to the objects before 
them. 

Some defective children will relate the counting series per- 
fectly to a series of objects; that is, they count correctly a 
row of objects but have no appreciation of the number concept 
involved. If, for instance, after the child has counted a series 
of four objects, he is asked, "How many are there?" the answer 
may be, "ten." If a row of objects, say two or three is placed 
before him, and he is asked to tell how many are there he wiU 
again count correctly as a series and relate the series correctly 
to the objects before him and answer wildly, "seven" or "nine." 

The normal child of this age is able not only to count cor- 
rectly, but also to understand that his counting numbers. He 
does not make so erratic an answer as has been indicated of 
the defective child. Binet and his followers have made this 
test rather a vague one by insisting that the child be asked to 
count four pennies and by pointing out that it is necessary for 
him to count some such series of objects which are of interest 
to him. The writer finds that if the child can count at all 
he can and is wilHng to count anything. The writer generally 
uses a row of small circles upon a sheet of paper. The child 
always counts these as willingly as he would count pennies, or 
other objects. 

V. Game -of patience with two pieces. — For this test 
an oblong card is cut along the diagonal, making two triangular 
pieces. An uncut card is placed on the table at the same time 
as the pieces of the cut card and the child is told that a card 
like the one before him was cut in two and that he may arrange 
the pieces as before it was cut. This tests his ability to con- 
struct from a given bit of material a product to correspond 
to a given model. Failure to do this is significant of the child's 
lack of constructive ability to the extent that the complexity 
of this work permits it to be measured. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS , 21 

Binet says of this test, "After the operation is analyzed, it 
is found to consist of the following elements: i. To keep in 
mind the end to be attained, that is to say, the figure to be 
formed; it is necessary to comprehend this end, it is necessary 
also to 'think about it, not to lose sight of it. 2. To try dif- 
ferent combinations, under the influence of this directing idea, 
which often guides the efforts of the child though he be un- 
conscious of the fact. 3- To judge the formed combination, 
compare it with the model, and decide whether it is the correct 

one. 

In the writer's opinion the cut pieces should be laid with the 
two long sides of the original rectangle parallel with each other, 
as in figure a or figure b. This compels the child to move one 
piece about in such a way that his getting the pieces in the 
right position immediately would not be the result of accident. 
To place the pieces as in figure c would permit him with one 
movement to get them in the right position and since this is 
almost the only movement which it is possible for him to make 
with them the final result might be merely accidental. 

Children of Six Years 
I. Distinguishes between morning and evening.— The 
question is asked, 'Ts- it morning or afternoon now?" This 
tests the child's comprehension of this simple measure of time. 
The writer always asks, in addition, after the child's answer, 
"How do you know it is." The answer to this question always 
indicates the event of the day which the child has set up as 
his means of measuring time. He will say, "Because I have 
- just had my breakfast," or "my lunch," or some event of the 
school day, such as "We had our reading." Many children, 
who answer the question wrong, will, however, answer properly 
such questions as, "Do you have breakfast in the morning or 
in the afternoon?" "Do you have supper in the afternoon or 
in the morning?" "Do you go to school in the morning or in 
the afternoon?", and so on. This further precautionary ques- 
tioning shows whether or not the child has set up any type of 
time measure, though he may have failed to take notice of the 



22 CLARA SCHMITT 

particular event of the day at the time of his examination, which 
divides morning and afternoon for him. 

Binet says of this test — "One expects, we, ourselves, expected 
more brilliant results. We would have judged that children 
could distinguish between morning and afternoon long before 
the age of six. It is a distinction which appears so easy. Think 
of the fact that six-year old children are the oldest in the 
'maternelle' schools. Recall that the program of these schools 
provide for the teaching of history and geography; 'the prin- 
cipal irregularities of the earth's surface, brief biographies from 
natural history,' read the rules of the schools 'maternelle' of 
the department of the Seine. Is it not rather ridiculous to 
talk about natural history to children who cannot yet distinguish 
between morning and evening." 

Bobertag found that of 55 six-year old children 45 per cent 
answered the question correctly; of 126 seven-year old children 
69 per cent answered the question correctly. 

II. Defines in terms of iise.< — The child is asked successively 
"What is a fork? What is a table? What is a chair? What 
is a horse? What is a mama?" This tests the child's ability 
to abstract and put in language form certain characteristic 
qualities of familiar objects. 

Binet finds that up to nine years of age the majority of chil- 
dren define these objects in terms of use only; of a fork, "It 
is to eat with" ; of a table, "To eat on and to put things on" ; 
of a chair, "To sit on" ; of a mama, "She takes care of the 
children." After nine years of age the definitions are in terms 
superior to use. Of a fork, "It is an object used for eating"; 
of a horse, "It is an animal"; of a mama, "She is the mother 
of a child," etc. Other definitions superior to use are those 
which describe, such as "A fork has four prongs and a handle, 
it is made of silver," etc. Very young children will answer with 
silence or, "A fork is a fork." 

Bobertag points out that many children, who are intelligent 
and who are not loath to take the trouble to think, remain 
silent or say, "I do not know." Certainly these children know 
what a fork is as well as the others who make some kind of 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 23 

answer, and neither are they less experienced in the use of 
language. They make the problem a very difficult one for 
themselves and are in a state of mind similar to that of the 
adult if one suddenly asks him, "What is a hole?"; or what he 
understands by the term state or truth. That this is the con- 
dition of the minds of some children is shown by the fact that 
they are able to show a greater intelligence concerning the dis- 
tinguishing characteristics of the articles for which a definition 
is asked if in the beginning one guides their thought in some 
direction. Such guidance may take the form : — *A fork is 
to — ?", or "A fork is of — ?", or "A fork appears 
how — ?". Children in their endeavor to find a good answer 
will sometimes whisper c|uietly to themselves 'Tt is a — " 
Then they give up the problem and venture, 'T do not know." 

The writer has found many normal children who must be 
guided into an answer because they do not see the reason for 
asking, what to them, seems so simple a question. They have 
just the attitude of the adult when the latter is suddenly asked, 
"What is a fork?" So many possibilities for answer crowd 
into the mind and, not knowing for what purpose the question 
was asked, they stare and answer nothing. In the school in 
which these tests were given, the children of the second and 
third grades had studied and read of the customs of foreign 
people. It was found expedient to guide the child in this way : 
"You know in Japan they do not have forks. If you were 
there someone might ask you — What is a fork? What would 
you tell him?" 

Bobertag maintains further that one is not justified in sub- 
ordinating the use definition to other types of definitions of the 
object. He asks, "Is it not much more important that one 
should know of the fork that it is to eat with than that it is 
of iron, or pointed, or has a steel handle and two sharp points?" 
The use of the fork for eating is, he says, doubtless its most 
important characteristic. The others stand only in the relation 
of further information concerning the thing defined. It is 
probable that the tendency to add further definition to that of 
use is due, he thinks, to certain methods of school instruction. 



24 



CLARA SCHMITT 



In the school the question, "What is a — ?" is generally 
banned. If a teacher wishes to learn, for instance whether the 
child knows what a revolver is, he requires of him when he 
answers not only, "It is a weapon, or a hand weapon," but he 
also asks him how a revolver looks, what one does with it, etc. 
It therefore follows that the child of six years, who has had 
little of such training .in exact expression, will answer the ques- 
tion, "What is a fork?" with what had to him been the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of a fork, and the most important 
in his experience. The older child adds in addition to this or 
substitutes for it some such further information as Binet 
designates, "Definition superior to use." 

That the definition may be made of further use for measuring 
mental development than that conceived by Binet is shown by 
Bobertag with the use of more and other words than those 
used by Binet. Bobertag uses the following words : — fork, chair, 
tongs, kitchen, doll, carriag"e, horse, soldier, penny, rose. These 
were selected because — i. They could be easily defined by use. 
2. They could be easily defined by description. 3. They could 
be easily defined by means of classifying concepts. The de- 
velopment of the child from the use concept to the class concept 
in his definition of words is shown in the following table. 



Age of 
Child Fork 
5 yr. Knife 



Chair 



5yr- 



To use with 
potatoes 
6yr. To eat 
7yr. To eat 



Doll Horse 

Frieda has a It has ears 
doll 



Credit 
given by 
Soldier Bobertag 



aoii 
To sit upon To play with It pulls A soldier -|- 



7yr. Of iron 



To sit To carry 

Something To play 

upon which 

one may sit 
Of wood Of glass 



To run To march 

To he hitched He plays 

to a wagon music 



lyr. 



9yr. 



10 yr. 



A handle 
with 3 
prongs 

A kitchen 
utensil 

An eating 
utensil 



A back and a 
seat and 
■four legs 

A piece of 
house fur- 
niture 

A piece of 
furniture 



Plaything 



Of flesh 



A back and 
belly and 
four legs 



Has a uni- 
form and a 
helmet and 
a saber 

A man 



A plaything An animal A warrior 



A plaything 
for girls 



A mammal 



A protector of 
the father- 
land 



+ 
+ 



+ 



++ 



++ 



++ 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 25 

III. Copies a losenge. — The same may be said of this 
test as was said of the copying of a square. The drawing of 
the Hnes at other than right angles to each other, and at just 
the angle to be an approximately correct copy of the model 
before him, may frequently be more a test of motor ability 
than a test of the child's intellectual comprehension of the 
characteristics of the model before him. The writer has seen 
children with so little motor control as to be unable to make 
a passable copy, but who had an intellectual comprehension of 
the characteristics of the model such as to make them dissatisfied 
with their own copies. 

IV. Counts thirteen pennies. — The mental abilities underly- 
ing the performance of this test are the same as those under- 
lying the counting of four pennies discussed above. The 
difference between the two is only that of length of series. 
Whether or not a normal child of six is able to count to thirteen 
instead of ten, or any other number depends entirely upon train- 
ing. The writer has found many children of kindergarten age 
who have been taught to count much more, some to 100. 

V. Compares faces from the aesthetic point of view. — Six 
drawings are used for this test, representing heads of women. 
Three are pretty and three are ugly or deformed. The faces 
are compared two at a time, one pettty one and one ugly one, 
and the child is asked to tell which of the two he considers 
the prettier. This tests the child's comprehension of the normal 
or ideal type of face. That the faces would need to be changed 
greatly were one testing Chinese or Ethiopian children in their 
native home, goes without saying. 

Children of Seven Years 
I. Right hand, left ear. — The command is given the child, 
"Show me your right hand"; and then, "Touch your left ear." 
This test, at this early age, depends upon teaching. Up to this 
time the child has not done work of any such degree of manual 
skill as to bring out the distinction between the two hands. 
When he learns to write in the school such distinction is made. 
The test, if not passed, may mean only that the child has not 



26 CLARA SCHMITT 

had such experiences as would lead him to distinguish between 
right and left. The writer's memory of the learning of this 
distinction may serve to illustrate. The knowledge was gained 
through the hand-shaking situation. The extending of the left 
hand was always inhibited by the parent's injunction, "No, 
give the right hand." Later in life, when there came the 
necessity for distinguishing between the right and left hands, 
it was always necessary to call to mind the hand-shaking situa- 
tion, and the kinaesthetic image in the right arm which always 
came with it, served to distinguish the right from the left 
arm from which there came no such image. This method has 
sometimes still to be resorted to in order to distinguish the right 
from the left hand in unaccustomed situations. 

Binet directs in his grading of this test that the child who 
hesitates be considered a failure in the test. But the child 
who hesitates for a moment and then performs the test correctly 
may be in some such situation as regards his knowledge of right 
and left hand as has just been indicated above; and this hesita- 
tion may in itself be proof that he has a control of the mental 
process which helps him to make the desired distinction. 

II. Desicribes a picture.' — For this test a picture is shown the 
child, and he is asked to tell what he sees in it. He passes the 
test if he does more than merely enumerate the objects which 
the picture contains. If he says, for instance, "A man and a 
boy are pulling a cart," and not merely, "There is a man, a 
boy and a cart," he has satisfactorily passed the test. 

Binet finds that three intellectual levels may find expression 
through this test. The first occurs at the age of three when 
the child enumerates separately the persons and objects which 
he sees in the picture, without establishing any connection be- 
tween them. He says, "At three years one is at the stage of 
recognition, or identification of objects; this is the important, 
fundamental work in the perception of the external world in 
comparison with which all the other processes of perception 
are complementary." The second level is that of description. 
This is the level of seven years. The third level is that of 
interpretation. "The meaning of the picture or the nature of the 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 27 

people is told either by a brief word or by an explanatory remark, 
and often there is even an emotional note of sadness or of 
sympathy; it is possible that this emotional note exists with 
children who make a more simple response but they are unable 
to express it. We call these emotional responses interpretations, 
because they go beyond the visual impression, there is a real 
effort to explain the situation depicted." 

Bobertag criticises Binet on two counts; i. That pictures from 
which little in the way of description or interpretation could 
be given were used by Binet. The pictures, he thinks, were too 
wooden in character, too lacking in action. 2. That Binet's 
method of gaining response is too indefinite. It leaves the child 
in doubt and in a vague frame of mind as to what is wanted. 
Bobertag would add such questions as, "What are the people 
doing here ? What is happening here ? Why is this one doing 
so?" etc. In this way he would seek to guide the child into 
fruitful channels of response. By such methods he finds numer- 
ous grades of individual development instead of the three 
enumerated by Binet, but, in general, the three of Binet. 

Bobertag, with his method of questioning, finds that children 
younger than fifteen, the position of the test for interpretation 
in the 191 1 series, are able to make interpretations of pictures. 
The interpretations may, however, not be correct. 

A variation of this test was used by Squire (16). She gave 
five pictures by noted artists. In Disgrace, by Sigsbeeker; In 
Summer, by Van der Veer, Children of the Press, by Thomp- 
son, The Goose Girl, by Millet and Embers by Eastman John- 
son, to children between the ages of six and thirteen. The 
pictures were shown the child and he was required to give a 
name to each one, which he considered appropriate to the pic- 
torial representation. There were ten children in each group. 
She concludes, "From these results it seems fair to say that: 
(i) No six-year old child can be expected completely to com- 
prehend a situation presented pictorially. (2) Neither can a 
seven-year old child be expected to give an adequate title — a 
child of this age seems most interested in the appearance of 
the objects presented. (3) The eight-year old children are in- 



28 CLARA SCHMITT 

clined to interpret meaning in terms of action, and a few are 
able to give superficial titles. (4) In the ninth and tenth years, 
while descriptive phases and activities of the object are most 
likely to be considered, there is, in the case of the first picture, 
complete comprehension of the artist's meaning. The descrip- 
tive titles, when given, are condensed into terse phrases, and 
no longer stretched out into disjointed sentences. (5) In the 
eleventh year the answers show a wide distribution, due mainly 
to the fact that the proportion of retarded pupils was greater 
in this year than any iother. (6) In the twelfth year the 
majority of names given to the pictures would pass for titles, 
although a large proportion of them deal with superficial aspects. 
(7) There were many cases of complete comprehension in the 
thirteenth year. This imaginative insight could not be expected 
before adolescence." It is seen from this quotation that Mrs. 
Squire's results agree closely with those of Binet, to whose 
method she adhered in refraining from asking the child stimulat- 
ing questions. 

As Bobertag points out, the results will vary greatly with the 
type of pictures chosen and with the method of stimulating 
the child to express himself. Some of the Squire pictures 
are plainly not within a small child's realm of experience and 
are therefore uninterpretable by him. This is certainly true of 
Children of the Press, a crowd of poorly clad children receiving 
papers for distribution, and Embers, an old man seated before 
a grate in which the fire is slowly dying. Also The Goose Girl 
could have no associations with the experiences of a young 
American child not old enough to have read of foreign customs. 
Mrs. Squire found that the significance oi In Disgrace, a picture 
of a pouting child with face in the corner, was grasped earlier 
and more frequently than that df any other picture. This 
picture certainly portrays one of the child's earliest and most 
significant and, perhaps, most vivid experiences. 

Bobertag selected his pictures carefully with reiference to the 
experiences of a small child, and for this reason as well as for 
the more stimulating method of presentation obtained a result 
which would lead to a more optimistic judgment of the child's 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 29 

ability to interpret or abstract the meaning of a situation ^from 
the signs by which it is portrayed. 

In this as well as in any others testing the child's ability to 
make right deductions in a given situation one must, as Bobertag 
pointed out, choose the conditions of the situation with refer- 
ence to the child's experience. To make the sweeping declara- 
tion that a child of a certain age does not reason, from certain 
tests given him would probably quite misstate the case. He may 
reason or abstract correctly within the limits of his experience; 
or when the right motive for expressing his thought is supplied, 
as is the case in the picture test when he is stimulated by 
questions. 

III. Executes three commissions. — The child is asked to listen 
while he is told to do something, and then the instruction is 
given somewhat as follows; "You see the door and the pencil 
and the watch; go close the door, put the pencil at the end of 
the table, and hand me the watch." This is a test of the child's 
ability to attend to a set of directions which have only a sequen- 
tial relationship and translate them into activity. The test, 
according to Binet, is passed only if the child carries out the 
directions without any further encouragement such as, "And 
what else?"; You have forgotten something," 

The writer has found many sluggish and unresponsive chil- 
dren who had to be encourag^ed in this way for one or two 
sets of directions, but who then would follow out other similar 
sets without this stimulus. One would certainly deceive him- 
self and do the child an injustice to grade him as a failure in 
this test without first arousing his enthusiasm and consequent 
response in some such way as has been indicated. Children 
of the first grade fail in some cases in proper response to the 
school situation, — they will not attempt to carry out the direc- 
tions of the teacher in games and other schoolroom activities, 
such as counting, writing, etc. The attitude of the teacher to- 
ward such a child and her further educational procedure with 
him is wholly detemiined by the judgment which she forms of 
his case. She must know whether he is by reason of innate 
mental defect incapable of such response, or whether his failure 



30 CLARA SCHMITT 

is due to some other factor of disposition, emotion, will, or 
interest. The type of stimulus which Binet inhibits is necessary 
to show to what one may attribute such failure. 

IV. Counts nine sous. — This test has for its material three 
objects of a value of one each, and three of a value of two 
each. Binet used pieces of French money. Dr. Goddard uses 
postage stamps, and the writer uses small squares of paper 
marked "i, i," etc., since the numbers on the postage stamp 
are not easily discernible. The test is one of the child's ability 
to relate the symbols of number to the idea of number. There 
is involved also the idea of relative value, the value of one 
thing in terms of another. 

The idea of relative value involved in buying and selling is 
one which first appears at some time between five and seven 
years. 

If so much of number work as this test involves is taught 
in the first grade, the majority of children seven years O'f age 
will be able to pass it. If number work is delayed until the 
second grade, as is the case in some schools, many children 
seven years of age will be unable to pass the test. The use 
of tests similar to this is discussed in a later chapter. 

V. Names four colors. — This tests the child's ability to ab- 
stract a quality and name it. The colors red, green, yellow and 
blue are to be recognized without error. The writer finds no 
such refinement of method as is insisted upon by Wallin (17) 
necessary. He directs that saturated colors and dull, not shiny, 
surfaces be used in the test. If a child knows red as a quality 
he knows it whether associated with a dull or a shiny surface. 
If the character of the article whose color he is to name inter- 
feres with his recognition of the color' — though the writer has 
never found so anomolous a case, — it would certainly be proof 
that he did not know the color. 

In order to relieve the situation and test of any air oi formal- 
ity — which is always a desirable thing to accomplish in an 
examination — the writer is accustomed to ask the colors of any 
objects at hand which happen to be of the required color 
sufficiently saturated and in sufficiently large masses of solid 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 31 

color, such as the color of the book lying before him, the 
pencil which he is using, etc. The writer finds this test possible 
for children younger than seven. The ability to distinguish 
colors exists earlier than the age of seven, but its expression 
depends upon training. This is shown by the fact that kinder- 
garten children are trained in the recognition of colors, and 
normal children of kindergarten experience know them. 

As was pointed out by Binet, the naming of colors is a step 
in advance of the discrimination of them. Many de^fective 
children can not name colors correctly but can correctly sort 
color cards. 

Children of Eight Years 

I. Compares two rememhered objects. — Binet says of this 
test: "This is a valuable test because it does not depend in 
the least on instruction, and brings into play the natural good 
sense of the subject. It consists in investigating whether the 
subject can, in thinking of two objects, distinguish a difference 
between them; the perception of the difference is, in fact, the 
habitual and most natural result of the comparison." 

In this test one says to the child: "You have seen a butter- 
fly, have you not?, and you have seen flies. Tell me how is it 
that they are not alike. How do you know them apart when 
you see them at the same time?" In the same way he is asked 
to tell the difference between wood and glass, and paper and 
cloth. The child is expected to give what constitutes some 
significant difference between the two objects, such as, "The 
butterfly is larger than the fly" ; or, "has brightly colored wings 
and the fly has not." The types of response observed to this 
test by Binet, Bobertag, and others, are: i. The child main- 
tains silence. 2. He gives an answer which involves no dis- 
crimination, "Because they are different," or "Because it is a 
fly and one is a butterfly," or "They have wings." 3. He 
gives some non-discriminating differences such as "Wood is 
thick and glass is thin," or "Paper is whiter than cloth." 
4. He gives a correct answer for the first pair asked and, find- 
ing that answer receives approval, uses it for the other pairs 



32 CLARA SCHMITT 

and cannot be induced to make the correct discrimination for 
any others. 5. He gives a correct and discriminative response. 

Bobertag adds to this test one which requires the child to give 
the characteristics in which two objects are ahke. He uses 
sun and moon; glass and ice; honey and glue. He says to 
the child: 'The sun and the moon are alike in something, are 
they not? How is it that they are alike?" The correct answer 
is to the leffect that they are both round, or that they both 
shine, etc. Bobertag finds that the test for differences and the 
test for likenesses show that the two abilities differ in many 
cases. Some children are able to pass the one and not the 
other. 

n. Coimts backward to i from 20. — In this test the child 
is asked to count from one to twenty, and then he is asked 
to count backward from twenty to one. The test is one of 
the child's ability to rearrange mental content in a new and 
prescribed way. It shows that he is able to control his associa- 
tions in such a way as to produce a desired result. Reciting the 
months of the year and the alphabet backwards are analogous 
and perhaps more difficult tests. Th^ difficulty of such a test 
depends largely upon the familiarity with and length of series. 

Binet considers the test passed if the child takes not more 
than twenty seconds for the process. In the opinion of the 
writer the time required should not be so rigidly dictated. Binet 
also considers the test a failure if the child can be detected 
counting forward up to the desired point in order to get the 
next item of the reconstructed series. The writer's introspection 
at doing this sort of thing shows that there is no other method 
of doing it, unless the series is so familiar as to make this 
method of getting the next desired item unnecessary, or as to 
so shorten the process as to make it seem to be altogether 
eliminated. With the writer the alphabet is not so familiar 
a series as to make this method, when repeating it backwards, 
unnecessary. The child who is able to hit upon such a method 
of doing his work and to keep his mind to the task so that he 
makes no errors; who does not forget that his task is to count 
backward and to inhibit the counting forward association, shows 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 33 

his ability to control his mental processes, and has surely passed 

the test. 

Defective children of this age are either unable to understand 
what is required of them, and reply with absolute silence, or 
can find no method of doing the work even though they do 
understand what is required and make a valiant effort. Some 
defective children who do understand what is required and who 
have a method for doing it, are unable to inhibit the usual count- 
ing forward association, and after one or two successes at get- 
ting the desired items for the new series, begin again to count 
forward. The performance in such case becomes as follows: 
nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nine- 
teen, tzventy- tzventy-one, etc. 

The test is, in the writer's experience, one that can be passed 
by children younger than eight years of age, in case the series 
used is one with which they are perfectly familiar. Kinder- 
garten children who can count to ten or any other number, can 
also successfully count backward in the series with which they 
feel a perfect familiarity. Some of the kindergarten children 
of those examined by the writer, who could count to twenty, 
failed to count backward from twenty but succeeded in count- 
ing backward from ten, because the series between ten and 
twenty was not so familiar to them as to have become automatic, 
and they could not so divide the attention between the task to 
be accompHshed and the imperfectly acquired series. 

III. Indicates omissions in pictures. Four pictures are shown, 
each lacking some elemental part of the physical make up, and 
the child is asked to tell what is missing in the picture. This 
tests the child's ability to compare the representation of a type 
with the type itself; in this case the human body. 

IV. Gives day and date. In this test the child is asked to 
give the day of the week, the month, the day of the month, 
and the year. An error of three or four days is allowed. 

That this test may be passed two conditions are necessary. 
The subject must possess an appreciation of the conception of 
the measure of time involved in the date, and he must engage 
in such activities as make use of the date, such as the writing 



34 CLARA SCHMITT 

of letters or the reading of the daily papers. A subject may 
fail to pass the test merely because he does not engage in such 
daily occupations as require note of the current day, though he 
is quite capable of the conception of time measure. On the 
other hand he may be able to recite the date without possessing 
any idea of the time measure for which it stands. In the school 
children are frequently required to place the date on written 
work. In such case large groups of children may know the 
date without the corresponding idea of time measure. In order 
to determine whether the child's knowledge is only the result 
of such specific teaching or whether it is related to the time 
conception, the test may be extended by asking the questions, 
"What day of the week was yesterday? What will be to- 
morrow? What was last month? etc." Many defective children 
are able to recite the days of the week, the months of the year, 
and give the date without being able to answer the foregoing 
questions correctly. Occasionally a child fails to pass the test 
according to the standard set by Binet, but is able to answer 
these questions correctly with reference to the date which he 
has given. Such a case should be given full credit for the test. 

Binet says, "We found that in the schools 'maternelle,' a 
language lesson is given every day at the opening of school 
in which the day and date are taught. The children are told 
the day, date and year, and then made to repeat it. However, 
not one child in the school was able to give us the complete 
information, nor one the name of the year alone; and for the 
month many answers were given, even when in reality it was 
February 8. ... It is a curious fact that children fail most often 
to give the year. They give no year, they remain silent for 
they do not know it. Perhaps a year is for them so great a 
lapse of time that they can form no idea of it." 

If Binet's finding concerning this test and the fourth of the 
nine-year-old tests in which the child enumerates the months 
Oif the year are true for the ages under which they are put, one 
must conclude that the child who knows the day and date at 
eight years of age, but cannot know the months until he is 
nine years of age, is able to pass the former test only because 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 35 

of Specific training. If he cannot know the months of the 
year until he is nine years of age, how can he have a conception 
of the time measure for which the date stands? 

V. Repeats 5 digits. — The simplest and most effective way 
of giving this test is as follows: — One says to the child — 
"Listen!" and when he is attending "2, 7, i, say it." When 
he has responded correctly one says again, merely keeping the 
same attitude of attention toward the child, "4, 9, 6, 3," and 
so on until he fails. Should his attention at any time wander, 
it is most quickly brought back by the short command, "Listen !" 

An added feature of this test is to discover how many repeti- 
tions of the set of digits, which is just beyond his memory 
span, is necessary before he can learn to repeat it. If the child 
can repeat only four digits, then a set of five may be repeated 
again and again until he can repeat it correctly. This gives 
some indication of the child's ability to take on a new habit 
of attention, or to advance to a higher stage of ability. 

The writer finds frequently a type of defective child who, 
when given the set, for instance, 3, 5, 9, i, 4, will repeat all 
the digits but in some inverted order, such as 3, 9, 5, i, 4. One 
says to the child, "No you did not say them correctly. Say 
them just as I do," and they are repeated for him again. He, 
however, persists in saying them in the order in which he first 
said them. It seems, that having made one set of associations 
he is unable to break it up in favor of another. Upon one 
occasion a teacher, hearing this type of response, said of the 
child "That's just the way he is in reading. If he ever pro- 
nounces a word wrong, it is very difficult to get him to give 
the correct pronunciation." The writer has observed, in addi- 
tion, the following types of response on the part of defective 
children, i. They maintain silence. 2. After the child's limen 
is passed, he repeats only the last one or two digits of the set 
given him. 3. He repeats a set of numbers which may not 
be at all those given him. 4. He starts out with one of the 
numbers which has been given him, the first or the last perhaps, 
and then goes on counting in serial order. 

Bobertag has found that children of five years of age can 



36 CLARA SCHMITT 

reproduce a group of four digits; at seven years of age a group 
of five ; and at ten years of age a group of six. He adds to the 
test, after the child's response, "Was it right?" to which the child 
answers yes or no. He finds that feeble-minded children main- 
tain that what they have said is quite right, even though quite 
unlike the set given them. The normal child is more likely to 
say, "I do not know," or "It may be wrong." 

Children of Nine Years 

I. Gives change from twenty sous. — This test depends both 
upon ability, teaching and experience. The writer has not found 
the elaborate refinement of method described by Binet for this 
test a necessary condition for its proper performance. It is 
quite sufificient to ask the child to tell what would be the change 
that one would receive, and then, if he has answered correctly, 
to tell in what kind of pieces one might receive it. When a 
quarter is used, and the amount purchased is four cents, the 
child who answers correctly does not fail to tell you that your 
change might be in the form of two dimes and a penny. As 
a test of mathematical knowledge this one does not test the 
maximum mathematical ability of the child at this age, since 
the school requires more complex problems of him in the grade 
in which he normally belongs at nine years of age than the test 
implies. It is a test in which experience of a specific sort enters 
very largely in determining the type of performance. Many 
children who fail in doing the mathematical work of the school, 
but who are permitted to use money, are able to make change 
so far as their specific experiences with money permit them to 
do so. A thirteen-year-old defective boy in the third grade in 
school was unable to do the arithmetic work of the third grade. 
He could not learn to subtract or multiply. He, however, could 
make change with larger denominations and in more complex 
situations than this test calls for. He had learned to do this 
through collecting fares in the cab which he drove from his 
father's small hotel to the railway station. He could tell how 
much thirteen twenty-five cent fares amounted to, and yet was 
unable to so generalize his mathematical experience as to be 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 37 

able to work out this or other problems with which he had no 
experience, by the use of the mathematical processes taught in 
his grade. The children of his grade can work out problems 
with which they have had no specific experience. They can 
apply the arithmetic of the school for the purpose. 

II. Defines in terms superior to use. — Discussed above. 

III. Recognizees all the pieces of our money. — This test is, 
perhaps, in its implications of innate ability not different from 
that one in the fourth year list in which the child is asked to 
name different objects. To be sure, the distinguishing differ- 
ences between two pieces of money may be very much finer than 
the differences between a key, a knife, and a penny. Whether or 
not the child at this age knows these particular pieces of money 
depends upon the same ability which enables him at four years 
to name objects of any other kind, plus the specific experience 
which enables him to name different coins. 

The writer has not found it necessary to show the child all 
these pieces of money in order to determine whether or not 
he is able to recognize them. The child who can recognize 
them is able to tell you in what respect a five dollar bill differs 
from a one dollar bill, or a silver dollar from a half-dollar, 
sufficiently well to show his acquaintance with them. 

IV. Enumerates the months. — The ability which underlies this 
test is not different from that which enables the child at an 
earlier age to learn the counting series. The difference is merely 
one of specific instruction, plus whatever difference there may 
be in the difficulty of learning the two series. Whether or not 
the majority of children are able to repeat the months of the 
year at this age depends upon the school curriculum. The 
table of time measure is taught in that part of the arithmetical 
course which takes up other tables of measurement. In the 
Chicago schools this occurs in the fourth grade. Children who 
begin school at six years of age and progress normally, one 
grade every year, are in the fourth grade at nine years of age. 
It is probable, since much use is made of the date before this 
grade, that the names of the months of the year have been learned 
before this time. At any rate, the majority of children nine years 



38 CLARA SCHMITT 

of age during the first half of the year in the fourth grade learn 
the various tables of time measure, including the months of 
the year, if they have not previously learned them. If this specific 
bit of instruction came at an earlier or later period than this 
in the school, it would not, of course, be a suitable nine-year-old 
test ; and for that reason it cannot be considered a test of innate 
ability alone. The most important consideration with this test 
is the conception of time involved. 

It is characteristic of defective children, who can repeat the 
months of the year, that they cannot do it upon the demand, 
"Say for me the names of the months of the year." They re- 
main silent, not knowing what is wanted. If one starts them 
out, however, with, "January, February, go on now, say them 
for me," they can begin and repeat them correctly. In this case 
they have been able to learn a series, and when it is started for 
them they can go on with all of its terms but have been unable 
to relate the series to another conception. They have no idea 
of the meaning of the series as a measure of time. 

V. Understands easy questions. — The questions are, ( i ) 
"What would you do if you missed a train?" (2) "What 
would you do if one of your playmates should hit you without 
meaning to do so?" (3) "What would you do if you broke 
something belonging to someone else?" The answer to the 
first one of these questions depends upon the specific experience 
of the child in this particular situation. Binet considers the 
answer to this question, "Go home again," as incorrect; but 
in many instances this is what is done. Just what one would 
do of course depentis upon circumstances. The child whose 
family would have small choice of trains, say only one a day, 
has observed that they do go home again if the train is missed. 
Question number two shows the child's understanding of the 
relation of conduct to motive. Question number three shows 
his understanding of the accepted moral way of meeting the 
situation. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



39 



Children of Ten Years 

I. Arranges five weights. — The weights are in the form of 
boxes or blocks of identical size and color weighing respectively 
three, six, nine, twelve and fifteen grams. The child is asked 
to arrange them in the order of weight. This tests, in addition 
to the ability underlying the weight test in the five-year series, 
the child's ability to distinguish small differences in weight. In 
the writer's opinion, the grasp of the idea of arranging them 
serially, and an intelligent attempt to do so, is the significant 
part of the test. An error in the arrangement, such as fifteen, 
twelve, nine, three, six, is of little or no importance in judging 
his general intelligence. 

This test was given by the writer to a college class of twenty 
students. Each person was given all the time that he desired 
to arrange the weights to his satisfaction, and was permitted 
to lift and test them in his own way over and over until he was 
satisfied that he had arranged them correctly in the order of 
weight, from the heaviest to the lightest. Of these twenty 
college students, ten arrived at a correct result and ten of them 
did not. The ten who failed had some such error as is indicated 
above. 




-EJ13- 



II. Copies drazvings from memory. — The child is asked to re- 
produce from memory two drawings after being allowed to 
look at them for ten seconds. One says to him, "I shall now 
show you two little drawings which you may look at for only 
a little while. When I take the drawings away, then you are 
to draw them as well as you can remember. As you have only 
a few seconds to look at them, you must be careful to look at 
both of the drawings." When the child is ready with his arms 
and pencil in position and attention alert, the drawings are 



40 CLARA SCHMITT 

exposed for ten seconds. This test is one of a particular type 
of memory, — the visual. Psychological investigations of dif- 
ferent types of memory, visual, auditory, etc., go to show that 
they vary in ability with the individual. It is reasonable to 
suppose that children of the same degree of general intelligence 
might vary considerably in their ability to pass such a test as 
this, unless the drawings are so simple that they come within 
the lowest range of ability at visual memory, or the time of 
exposure so long as to place them within the lowest ability at 
learning the drawings. This learning may consist in getting 
a very thoroughly stamped visual image; or it may consist in 
transferring the visual imagery into terms of other imagery; 
or the visual imagery may be partially aided or propped up, 
so to speak, by a partial transference into other types of imagery. 
Many intelligent children show that they have a method of 
aiding the visual memory. Sometimes it is with a verbal 
analysis of the drawings before them. They will say softly 
to themselves of the second one, "three squares in a row" and 
then proceed to draw the figure more or less accurately, often 
with the right hand square turned outward or the middle por- 
tion closed. Of the first figure one often has evidence in the 
result that the drawing has been interpreted. The child says 
softly "a box," and then reproduces the figure, sometimes cor- 
rectly. Often the figure is reproduced as the conventionalized 
box, which shows even if one did not hear the child pronounce 
the word, that he has so interpreted the figure, forgotten the 
figure itself, and produced his interpretation. 

A clear example of the necessity for aiding the visual imagery 
with a verbal analysis was shown by a boy of thirteen. The 
test was given him in a way different from that prescribed by 
Binet. One figure at a time was exposed for three seconds and 
he was required to reproduce it. If wrong, it was exposed again 
until such time as it was reproduced correctly. Of the second 
figure, he said softly to himself, "three squares in a row," and 
reproduced the figure correctly, except that the center portion 
was drawn as a closed square. He was told that he had re- 
membered it wrong and might be permitted to look again. With 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 41 

the second exposure, he said, "the center one is open," and 
then reproduced the figure correctly. When shown the first 
figure he said, ''two squares," and reproduced the figure with 
the enclosed square in the exact center of the outer one. Upon 
the second exposure he reproduced it correctly. When asked 
what he thought about it then, he said, "I said to myself the 
middle one is nearer one side." 

Many children aid the visual memory by outlining the figure 
in the air while observing it. In the writer's experience, the 
defective child never learns consciously to help out his defective 
memory with such an analysis. He may or may not learn to 
represent the figures correctly, after an indefinite number of 
exposures, but there never is evidence that he finds another type 
of mental imagery to aid the visual. 

III. Criticises absurd phrases. — The absurdities are : ( i ) An 
unfortunate bicycle rider fell on his head and was killed in- 
stantly. He was taken to a hospital, and they fear he will 
not recover. (2) I have three brothers, Paul, Earnest, and 
myself. (3) I am taller than John, John is taller than Henry, 
and Henry is taller than I am. (4) There was a railroad 
accident yesterday, but it was not a bad one; the number of 
dead is only forty-eight. (5) Some one said, "If I should ever 
grow desperate and kill myself, I would not choose Friday, be- 
cause Friday is an unlucky day and might bring me unhappiness." 

The performance of this test requires the ability to hold in 
attention the several elements of the verbally presented situation, 
and to form a judgment as to the possibility of their simul- 
taneous presence in the situation. The writer's experience with 
this test, as may be seen in the tables II, III, IV following, 
indicates that children younger than ten years of age are able 
to do this. To determine this fact, care should be taken, in 
giving the test, if the child answers incorrectly, to find if he 
is unable to hold the various elements of the situation in mind 
sufficiently well to form a judgment, or if he has forgotten or 
failed entirely to notice some of the elements of the situation 
as presented to him. It is the practice of the writer when a 
wrong answer is given to ask the child to repeat the thing that 



42 CLARA SCHMITT 

was said. Frequently he has failed to take note of some of 
the elements of the situation; for instance, in the first one 
he sometimes has forgotten immediately that the unfortunate 
bicycle rider was killed instantly, in which case he says that 
there is nothing wrong with the statement. It is then repeated 
for him and he is asked to repeat it until he can do so cor- 
rectly. It is only then that a wrong response can be attributed 
to defect of judgment. The defective child may, however, 
never be able to get all the elements of the situation in the 
field of attention at one time. Of the normal children tested 
none required more than a third repetition. 

Among foreign children it is very common to find that they 
make use of such an expression as, "I have three brothers, Paul, 
Earnest and myself," with correct comprehension of the mean- 
ing. Their meaning is, "There are in my family three brothers" ; 
but the putting of the statement in the first person does not 
show a lack of judgment on their part. It is merely a very 
common misuse of language on the part of foreign speaking 
people. 

IV. Understands difficidt questions. — The questions are : 
(i) What should you do if you were delayed in getting 
started to school and knew you would be late? (2) What 
should you do before taking part in an important affair? 
(3) Why is a bad action done when one is angry 
more excusable than the same action done when one is 
not angry? (4) What would you do if you were asked 
your opinion of someone whom you did not know well? (5) 
Why should one judge a person by his acts rather than by his 
words? These questions test the child's ability to formulate 
a rule of action to meet a given situation. 

From the answers one can often determine whether the child 
has generalized the situation or has in mind a particular situa- 
tion. To question number one, Binet considers only the answers, 
'T should have to hurry or "I should have to run," as correct, 
the idea being to reduce the amount of tardiness. However, 
the rule or practice adopted by the particular school or the home 
may determine another answer which would be equally correct. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS A3 

For instance, if he says, "I would go back home and get an 
excuse from my mother," since some schools make this require- 
ment. The second question the writer finds it necessary usually 
to put in this form: "What ought one to do before beginning 
a very important piece of work or anything that is very im- 
portant?", since the word affair among uneducated classes is 
not understood. Some children generalize the situation, and 
answer to the effect that they would think or reflect about it. 
Some children have in mind particular important situations, 
usually those in which they have recently engaged, and answer 
accordingly. One girl, thinking of a fine piece of embroidery 
which she had been doing for days in the schoolroom for a 
rather important purpose, answered, "Wash your hands." A 
boy, thinking of a workshop where he had been for several 
months learning a trade, said, "Ask the boss to show you how." 
The generalized form of answer shows a higher range of in- 
telligence than the particularized form. Young children and 
defective individuals are, if they answer at all correctly, more 
likely to particularize the situation than to generalize it. 

V. Uses three given ivords in tzvo sentences. — Binet uses 
the words, Paris, fortune, stream; Dr. Goddard uses the words, 
Philadelphia, money river; The writer uses the words, Chicago, 
money, river, Binet says of this test that it shows the child's 
a'bility to invent his own ejcpression. He directs that the child 
be asked to write the sentence or sentences which he makes. 
The writer's practice is to ask the child to give his sentences 
orally. With very young children the word sentence, is not 
understood, and the child is asked merely to tell something 
about these three things, or to say something that has these 
three words in what he says, or to tell a story about them. 

The success of the test with children of different ages de- 
pends upon the words chosen. When there is a failure to re- 
spond with a correct sentence for the words Chicago, money, 
river, the writer gives other words, such as hoy, river, hall, when 
the result is generally successful with normal children. This 
indicates that the ability to invent one's own expression may be 
something apart from the ability to invent an expression for a 



44 CLARA SCHMITT 

given set of words. Success with certain sets and failure with 
certain other sets may indicate, among children of the same or 
different ages, differences in experience, or maturity of thought, 
but one would have to examine further than the set given by 
Binet before deciding that the child lacked the ability to invent 
his own expression. 

Young children fail to respond to the words Chicago, money, 
river, because their experiences with such generalized ideas as 
these is quite lacking; or in their specific experiences, the three 
ideas expressed by these words may never have had any relation 
to each other and the child is therefore unable to form a train 
of ideas which would connect them all. When he is given a 
set of words which come within the experience possible to his 
age, he is successful in his response. 

Illustration of the influence of formal educational experience 
was Ifurnished by the children whose records appear in the 
tables below. In the local history which is taught to the third 
grade, the Chicago river figures much in the development of 
the city of Chicago. The children from this grade gave gen- 
erally a sentence which expressed this historical fact, — in effect, 
"Chicago has a river which cost much money." The children 
of the other grades did not generally give this sentence. 

Another type of sentence is one which is grammatically correct 
but is an invention merely to fulfill requirements, such as, 
"Chicago has a river, and also much money in its banks." This 
type of sentence is given very largely by the child who lacks 
the historical teaching just mentioned. A third type is non- 
sensical in meaning, such as, "Chicago makes more money than 
the river does," a sentence given by a fifteen-year-old defective 
girl. Squire (i6) gave the set, boy, river, hall, to six-year-old 
children with the requirement that they tell a story. She obtained 
a uniform result showing that the child of this age is able to 
invent his own expression. 

Children of Twelve Years 

I. Resists suggestion. — The material for this test as prepared 
according to Binet's suggestions, is : "Prepare a booklet of 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 45 

six pages. On the first page two lines are drawn in ink, A and 
B ; the first, that is the one on the left, is four centimeters long, 
and the second five centimeters; they are placed in line with 
each other and one centimeter apart; on the second page two 
similar lines are drawn, the first five centimeters, the second six; 
on the third page the first line is six centimeters, and the second 
seven; on each of the three following pages two lines are drawn 
in the same positions, but all are the same length, seven 
centimeters." 

In giving the test one says to the child, "Which is the longer 
of these two lines?" (showing the first pair), "and of these 
two?" (showing the second pair), and so on. Many children 
attempt to measure the lines; if not directly on the page itself, 
in some other way, by placing the fingers appropriately on the 
table before them. For this reason the writer finds it advan- 
tageous to say to the child, "Which of these two lines looks 
the longer?" Binet finds that children under twelve years of 
age tend to answer correctly for the first three pairs, and to 
make the same answer for the next three. That is, the child 
points for the first three pairs to the longer line at the right; 
he has thus established a "habit," and follows the suggestion 
given for the next three pairs by pointing also to the ones at 
the right. 

Binet has not in his discussion of this test mentioned the fact 
that frequently the wrong judgment on the part of the child 
is not the result of the type of suggestibility which this test 
is designed to measure. This error in judgment occurs fre- 
quently under such circumstances as to make one doubt that it 
is the result of habit plus suggestibility. If the child pauses 
for a moment before the two lines of equal length, looks at 
and scans them carefully, and then indicates one as being longer 
than the other, the error is very apparently not the result of 
"habit" and "suggestibility." It shows that he has used his 
judgment but has judged incorrectly. The writer's experience 
with this test may throw light upon the child's error. When 
looking at the two lines intently and moving the eye from the 
left-hand end of the left line to the right-hand end of the right 



46 CLARA SCHMITT 

line, the left line appears to be the longer. Many of the chil- 
dren to whom this test was given made this particular type of 
wrong judgment. The number is indicated in the tables which 
follow. Those who made the error in such a way as to conform 
with Binet's interpretation of it, that is, said the right hand 
Hne was longer, were marked failures in the tables. The writer 
also tried this test upon six adults who came into the clinic 
one after another on a certain day. All of these persons made 
wrong judgments, at least to the extent of saying that they 
thought the left line was longer than the other but were not 
quite sure about it. 

II. Cf. above, test five, under ten-year-old children. 

III. Says more than sixty words in three minutes. — The child 
is asked to say as many words as he can think of in three 
minutes, and is told that they will be counted. Binet says, 
"This test is very interesting, for its fertility in suggestions. 
Besides the number of words, one can know their relation. Some 
subjects give only detached words, each of which requires an 
effort to recall; others give a series of words, the furnishings 
of a school, various articles of clothing, geological terms, etc. 
Some use only names of common objects, others cite abstract 
words or rather far-fetched words. All this gives an idea of 
the mentality of the subject. The use of series of words, and 
of abstract terms, indicates a certain amount of intelligence 
and culture. ... By this test we are able to estimate, accord- 
ing to observations which we have made elsewhere, both the 
intellectual activity of an individual and his verbal type." 

In addition to the above phases concerned in the judgment 
one may derive from this test, another may be considered. In 
the writer's opinion, a certain paucity of words in the perform- 
ance of this test with young children does not necessarily indicate 
a low level of intellectual activity; indeed, it may indicate a 
high level. In the conversation of e very-day life words come 
not singly and unattached, but are the result of associations 
which the purpose of the conversation brings about. Other 
associations than those pertinent to the subject of discussion 
are inhibited by the normal person. Without a purpose for the 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 47 

use of words they may not occur in association. Many children 
like to comment upon their successes with this test and tell how 
they accomplish it. One said, "I thought about all the things 
that we have on our boat, and named them all." Another 
fastened his eyes on a map on the opposite wall, and mentioned 
all of his observations associated with it. Many of them make 
the comment, "It was hard to think of the words." All of this 
comment on the part of the child shows the necessity for an 
object and a use for the word before associations with other 
words can be made. 

IV. Defines abstract terms. — The terms to be defined are: 
charity, justice, kindness. See III, under adults. 

V. Derives the sense of a sentence the words of which are 
mixed. — A card is given to the child with the words, For — an — 
the — at — hour — early — ive — country — started. The child is told 
that here are the words of a sentence which were mixed up, 
and that if he puts them in the right order he will make a 
good sentence. This test is discussed further on page 72. 

Children of Fifteen Years 

I. Repeats seven digits. — This test is made in the same manner 
as that which requires the repetition of five digits. In the 
writer's experience with it most children who succeed are those 
who after the first or second failure repeat softly to themselves 
the digits as they are given by the experimenter. This provides 
the child with an added memory image to aid in recall. 

II. Gives three rhymes. — The child is asked to repeat as many 
words as he can think of that rhyme with the word obey. The 
writer's experience with this test shows that the success attained 
with it depends upon the word which is chosen. Younger chil- 
dren will readily construct a rhyme with the word hill, for in- 
stance, but remain mute when given the word obey. The 
two-syllable and more unfamiliar word presents to their minds 
difficulties which they do not attempt to surmount. The same 
child, however, will glibly recite hill, fill, will, etc., when given 
the more easy and familiar word. 

III. Repeats a sentence of twenty-six syllables. — The child is 



48 CLARA SCHMITT 

told that the experimenter will repeat some sentences to him, 
and that he is then to repeat them exactly as he has heard 
them, without the change of a single word. The writer's ex- 
perience shows that success with such sentences is dependent 
upon the familiarity of the child with the words used. An 
unfamiliar word or name so attracts the child's attention from 
the remainder of the sentence that he is unable to give it. When 
giving such tests to children of foreign parentage it has been 
found expedient to use the vernacular to which the child is 
accustomed. For instance, in the following sentences : The 
other day I saw on the street a pretty yellow dog; Little Morris 
has stained his nice new apron. Among children of the 
street type frequently encountered Morris is sometimes an un- 
familiar name, stained is always an unfamiliar word. The test 
is passed better by these children if these words are changed 
in such a way as to make the sentences seem very ifamiliar to 
them. In the following sentence, — "Ernest is frequently pun- 
ished for his had conduct" — frequently is a word which the street 
child has probably never used, even if he has heard it. It is 
expedient to change it to a word familiar to him in his own 
vocabulary, 

IV. Interprets a picture. — See above. 

V. Solves a problem from several facts. — The two situations 
presented to the child are : ( i ) ^ woman walking in the forest 
of Fontainehleau stopped suddenly, dreadfully frightened, hurried 
to the nearest policeman and told him that she had just seen 
hanging to a limb of a tree — what? (2) My neighbor has just 
received some singular visitors. He received, one after the 
other, a doctor, a lawyer and a priest. What is going on at my 
neighbor's house? These situations are presented to the child 
in such a way as to conform with circumstances familiar to 
him. The name of the park nearest his home is substituted for 
the forest of Fontainebleau. In the second situation, with 
Protestant children minister is substituted for priest, and with 
Jewish children Rabbi is substituted. The writer has considered 
it expedient to allow credit for answers to the first in addition 
to the one which Binet permits. Binet judges the only correct 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 49 

response to be, "A person zvJw has been hanged." The answer 
sometimes is made. In addition, one often obtains the answer, 
''A zvild animal." Under the circumstances, this is in the child's 
mind sufficient reason for the conditions of the problem. In the 
city of Chicago one of the large parks contains a menagerie. 
There occur occasionally in the newspapers stories of the escape 
of animals from the menagerie. That these stories are always 
untrue, of course the child does not know. Another answer 
which has been given so many times as to show the application 
of real experiences to this situation is, ''An owl; his eyes frighten 
you and make you think something dreadful is there." For the 
second situation, the writer has found it expedient to add an 
additional caution. If the child answers correctly, "He is ill," 
or "He is dying," he is asked to tell why in that case the three 
people have gone there. Frequently the child's correct judgment 
is made with reference to one of the conditions only, that the 
doctor has gone there. He does not know why the lawyer and 
the priest have gone, which shows that he has not taken into 
account the whole situation. His answer, even if correct, is 
given such credit only if he can give correctly the functions 
of the lawyer and priest in the situation. 

Adults 

I. Solves the paper cutting test. — A sheet of paper is folded 
along both diameters before the subject and a small triangle 
is cut out along the edge which shows but a single fold. The 
subject is asked to draw on a similar sheet before him the 
position of the cut out portion when the sheet is unfolded. This 
test requires control of the mental imagery in accordance with 
the given conditions, such as to bring about in imagination the 
correct result of the conditions. 

II. Reconstructs a triangle. — A card is cut in two pieces along 
the diagonal. The pieces are placed before the subject on a 
sheet of paper, and he is asked to draw the resulting shape 
if the lower piece is placed in such a way that the short side 
lies along the diagonal of the other card with the right angle 
at the left-hand corner of the upper card and the end of the 



50 CLARA SCHMITT 

long side pointing downward. One says to the subject, "How 
will it look if I place the lower card so that this edge lies 
along this edge, with this corner here, and this one pointing 
downward?", with the gestures appropriate to the above ex- 
planation. This test, as the one above, is one of control of the 
imagery to correspond with the given conditions, with a con- 
crete stimulus to set up the train of imagery. 

III. Gives difference in meaning of abstract terms. — The 
question is asked, What is the difference between laziness and 
idleness; between event and advent; between evolution and rev- 
olutionf The passing of this test depends, of course, upon the 
training which the subject has received. Except among educated 
classes in America the word advent is unusual, as is also the 
word evolution. An example which illustrates the dependence 
of this test upon training is the answer of a twelve-year-old 
Catholic boy in the high school. He said, "Advent is a church 
festival; evolution is a term in arithmetic." Both these answers 
were correct, though strictly they could not fill the conditions 
of the test. Many children say for revolution^ "It is a turning 
about," often giving as an example, "A wheel revolves and 
then there is a revolution." This, to be sure, is correct. Many 
children give as a definition for revolution^ "It was a war," 
which, with reference to American history, is also correct. 

That there is a difference in innate ability between the per- 
sons whose acquaintance with the words has been somewhat 
limited and who, therefore, gives a limited definition but en- 
tirely correct within the realms of his own experience, and the 
older or better educated person who gives a definition for the 
words also correct within the realms of his larger experience, 
is problematical. If the two are of the same age but the educa- 
tion of the former was cut ofif at such a place that further 
experience with these words was prevented, one may not rate him 
upon this test with less innate ability but with less education. 

IV. Solves the question concerning the president. — The ques- 
tion is, There are three principal differences betzveen a king and 
a president; what are theyf This test also depends for its 
proper performance upon the education of the subject. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 5^ 

V. Stmimari:;es an observation made by Hervieu. — The child 
is told that a short paragraph will be read to him, and then 
he is to tell in his own words the meaning of it. The paragraph 
is : Manyf opinions have been given on the value of life. Some 
call it good, others call it bad. It woidd be more just to say 
that it is mediocre; for on the one hand our happiness is never 
so great as zve woidd have it, and on the other hand our misfor- 
tunes are never so great as others zvould have them. It is this 
mediocrity of life zvhich makes it just, or rather zvhich prevents 
it from being radically unjust. This tests the ability to control 
the attention over the period of the reading of the selection 
and to generalize the abstract thought which it contains. 



IV 

FALLACIES AND INADEQUACIES OF THE 
BINET-SIMON SERIES 

From the use and analysis of the Binet-Simon tests one reaHzes 
that the theory underlying their construction was not clearly 
conceived by their authors or was not consistently carried out. 

The method used in the first series was that of putting to 
children of different ages a large number of questions and 
setting down as suitable to each age those questions which re- 
ceived at a given age a certain percentage of correct answers. 
The 1908 series, which has received the largest use, contained 
a reading test. In the 191 1 series this reading test with a few 
others of less importance were eliminated in order that the 
series might be free from those tests which are the product of 
educational advantage. Because of these considerations, then, 
the series may be accepted as designed to measure intellectual 
growth from year to year without reference to the changes 
produced by formal instruction. 

Though Binet nowhere definitely outlines his theory one gains 
the impression that the different age groups of tests are designed 
to measure something in mental development which is qualita- 
tively different from year to year. One infers from various 
statements that certain tests are possible at nine years of age, 
for instance, which were not at eight because of a certain quality 
of the nine year mental age not possessed by the eight year 
mental age. In other words the assumption is that there is a 
mental growth from year to year which makes it possible to 
take on at corresponding ages certain experiences without ref- 
erence to previous experience. For instance, at a certain age 
it is possible for the child to know the months of the year, 
at another age he cannot. That is, this underlying factor of 
mental growth determines the form of expression of mental 
life. The converse of Binet's theory is that the form of ex- 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 53 

pression of mental life at any time is determined by the sum 
of previous experiences. 

The theory of Binet may be expressed as follows : at a cer- 
tain chronological age the mental age may be represented by 
X, at a succeeding chronological age it is y, and at a third 
it is z. According to the converse theory, the mental age of the 
first period, is x, at the second x + i, at the third x -\- 2. 
A third possibility presents itself. At the earliest measurable 
stage of development the mental age is x, at the second it is y, 
and at a third it is s, and thereafter at succeeding stages it is 
2 + i» ^ + 2, etc. The unknown quantities stand for the im- 
measurable innate factors which distinguish the vegetative idiot 
from the normal person and the ordinates for the measurable 
factors of experience. 

Apparently Binet assumed the first possibility to be the rule 
of development from infancy to adult age. That the assumption 
is true to this extent has not been proved by observation or 
experimentation in child psychology. 

It is probable that the third possibility more nearly expresses 
the truth. There are, we know, periods of development in the 
child where great and significant changes take place, both 
physically and mentally. The acquisition of walking and talk- 
ing mark stages of development which are of great significance 
in the growing child. Certainly the mind is qualitatively dif- 
ferent after the advent of the great increase of motor ability 
accompanying walking, and of language. The advent of puberty 
marks another such stage of development. The mental changes 
accompanying puberty mark off a rich field for investigation. 
The walking stage and the pubertal stage have their bases in 
physiological changes which may be more or less definitely ac- 
companied by intellectual changes. To what extent these physio- 
logical changes cause or accompany or are paralled by intellectual 
changes of a qualitative kind not dependent upon previous 
experience, is one of the unanswered problems of genetic 
psychology. Aside from these few possibilities we do not know 
whether mental development proceeds from year to year as 
Binet assumed. We do not yet know except in a few matters 



54 CLARA SCHMITT 

whether a child is innately more capable of certain mental pro- 
cesses at one time than at another. In the discussion of the 
preceding pages it has been shown that some of the tests placed 
at certain ages by Binet and supposed to measure abilities peculiar 
to those ages, could be used to call out an expression of the 
same abilities at earlier ages if so presented as to fall within 
the child's range of possible experience at those ages. The 
interpretation of pictures, counting backward, and originating 
of a sentence with three given words are cases in point. 

Until we know more of these most fundamental of the under- 
lying facts of genetic psychology we can not unqualifiedly accept 
the Binet-Simon tests for the purpose for which they were de- 
vised, namely the measurement of mental age. We must know 
in more fundamental terms than they express what it means 
to be eight years of age, or ten years of age mentally. 

We must be able, too, to separate innate mental development 
from that due to education of specific types. This the Binet- 
Simon tests fail largely to do. This point has been indicated 
in the foregoing discussion of the individual tests. The most 
striking example of this lack is the test which requires the 
reciting of the months of the year. The very young or the 
defective individual may have the ability to learn this series with 
more or less facility but the conception of time relationship in- 
volved in the series is one which it is possible is not entertained 
by either. The same thing may be said of the counting series 
which may be learned as a verbal series without the accompany- 
ing conception of number. Such tests as these without further 
investigation fail to indicate the type of mental complex involved 
in passing them. 

It was Binet's attempt to measure only innate ability as dis- 
tinguished from information, however, which led him to discard 
reading tests from the 191 1 series.* By reason of this the 
series now fails to take account of a most important set of 
abilities, those that the school endeavors to develop. Many 
innate abilities can be measured only by the reaction of the 
individual to the learning situation. The most obvious measure 
of the ability or group of abilities which enables one to learn 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 55 

to read is the amount that has been learned after a given period 
of instruction, — say a year in the first grade of the pubHc school. 
The use which can be made of the school tests of reading, 
writing, and arithmetic is discussed below. They are valuable 
because, in a given situation in which the curriculum and the 
child's history are known, the relation of the product to the 
experience can be measured. 

However, if we should admit that there is such development 
of mental age as may be measured from year to year, the Binet- 
Simon tests do not constitute an accurate measure oi it, as is 
claimed by Binet and his followers. This is most strikingly shown 
in the work of Goddard (13) who applied the scale of 1908 
to two thousand nonselected children of the public school. He 
made a distribution table showing the relation between the mental 
age as measured by the Binet-Simon tests, and the chronological 
ages of this group. This piece of work was discussed in 191 2 
(18) by the writer as follows, beginning with Goddard's table 
showing the chronological and mental age distribution of his 
two thousand subjects. 

Mental Ages 

>-~ >— 1 >— , •--, •*- 

Age 

4 yrs 1223 8 

5 yrs 2 4 8 40 16 4 114 

6 yrs I 3 29 48 69 9 o I 160 

7 yrs o I 2 8 IS 114 50 4 3 I97 

8 yrs o o 2 2 i 87 86 16 12 3 209 

9 yrs 27 54 56 58 4 2 201 

10 yrs 3 15 24 ,19 124 27 8 2 222 

11 prs I 4 13 25 50 60 12 I 166 

12 yrs 4 10 13 42 36 39 144 

13 yrs II 5 6 30 19 21 7 89 

14 yrs 116543 20 

15 yrs 30120 6 

Showing the chronological and mental age distribution of the two thousand 
public school children graded by the Binet tests. 

The writer has computed from this distribution table the 
percentages of those who passed "at age" or normal, "below 

* Nouvelles Researches sur la Mesiire Niveau Intellectual dies les Enfants 
d'Ecole. L'A. P. 17: 146. 



56 CLARA SCHMITT 

age," and "above age" for the different ages. These percentages 
arrange themselves as follows : 

Age Below Age At Age Above Age 

S 12.2% 35-0% 52.6% 

6 20.6 30.0 49.4 

7 13-2 57-8 28.9 

8 44.0 41. 1 14.8 

9 40.2 27.8 31.8 

10 27.4 55.8 16.6 

1 1 • • • • 55-4 3'6.2 7.8 

12 72.9 27.0 00.0 

13 92.1 7.8 00.0 

This table shows that with the exception of the seven-year- 
and the ten-year-old children less than fifty per cent of any 
group were graded "at age" according to the Binet scale. Of 
the eight, nine, eleven and twelve-year-old children the largest 
group is of the "below age" group; and of the five- and six-year 
old children the largest is the "above age" group. Dr. Goddard 
has grouped all the "above age," all the "below age," and the 
normal or "at age" groups regardless of chronological age and 
obtains a curve very closely approximating a normal distribu- 
tion. Of this curve Dr. Goddard says, "The significance of these 
figures obtained from the general result is very great. There 
is every reason to believe, and statisticians confirm this, that 
any group of two thousand children may be taken as a fair 
sample of conditions to be found in any number of children 
to be found in any country. Consequently whatever percentages 
or proportions are found here may be taken to be very closely 
the standard to be found elsewhere." In answer to this state- 
ment we may make the very obvious objection that this curve is 
not made up of the measurement of one quality of an otherwise 
homogeneous group, but is compiled from the measure of many 
qualities of children of different ages. It is made up of the 
results of tests applied to children of different ages who may 
not have done the same tests, as will be presently shown. The 
curve can, therefore, have no statistical validity. It is merely 
a happy or an unhappy accident. Dr. Goddard says further, 
"Bearing this in mind it becomes very significant when we find 
that we have 78 per cent of the children practically normal and 
satisfactory — for we allow those children who are one year above 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 57 

and one year below to pass with the central group as satisfactory 
children." It is only by lumping the percentages again that 
this approximation of a normal distribution is obtained. The 
percentages of those graded normal according to Dr. Goddard's 
standard for the different ages arrange themselves as follows: 

^S^ • 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 years 

Per cent normal.... 77.1 91.2 80.7 90.4 83.5 76.5 73.4 52.20 31.4 

This table shows that it is only for the ages five, ten, and 
eleven that a standard approximating that fixed by Dr. Goddard 
is obtained. The twelve and thirteen year group fall below, 
the six, seven, eight, and nine year groups above it. The adop- 
tion of Dr. Goddard's standard is, however, hardly permissible 
because of the great pliability of the rule for grading the tests 
laid down by Binet. This rule, presumably followed by Dr. 
Goddard, allows a child to be graded normal or at age if he 
misses not more than one of the tests designed for his age. If 
he misses two of the tests for his age he may be allowed to 
substitute tests of a higher age and still be graded normal. 
This method gives the nine-year-old children, for instance, 
opportunity to fail on any two of the six tests for that age 
and substitute any three of the sixteen remaining tests. They 
are then graded as nine 'years of age mentally. The eight- 
year-old children may pass any five of the twenty-two tests 
above those for eight years and are then graded nine years 
of age. The ten-year-old children may fail to pass two of 
the ten-year-old tests and not a sufficient number of those above 
to compensate and are then graded nine years old mentally. 
In this way we may obtain one mental age group by classing 
together three groups who have done different things. Dr. 
Goddard gives a further pliability to the method of grading 
by grouping together with these as normally satisfactory two 
other groups who have done still other things. 

Further doubt is cast upon the accuracy of the tests by the 
fact that judgments arrived at through their application do not 
coincide with that of the school concerning the same subjects. 
Dr. Goddard, himself, recognizes this. He says, "Analyzing 
our data so as to show where each individual is, we find that 



58 CLARA SCHMITT 

the case is not as favorable as we suggested in the previous 
paragraph, that many children who are normal mentally 
[according to the Binet tests'] are two or three or possibly 
four years behind their grade. We find a great many other 
children who are mentally dull, not as far behind their grade 
as their mentality would require. We find still worse condi- 
tions among those who are ahead of their age mentally. They 
are not correspondingly ahead of their grade. In other words 
the two systems do not agree at all. Now having satisfied our- 
selves that the Binet scale is the most accurate method that we 
have of determining intellectual ability in children, the question 
at once arises, how much injustice is being done these children 
by the ordinary school routine?" The teachers of the school 
might well retort to this question that as they have the child 
continuously over a period o|f yea'rs their judgment of his 
abilities ought necessarily, in general, to be more accurate than 
that arrived at by a ten or twenty-minute examination over 
very little of the matter with which the school concerns itself. 

Terman and Childs (15), after the appHcation of the Binet- 
Simon scale of 396 non-selected children of the public school, 
came to the following conclusion : 'Tt is evident from the results 
of our investigation that the Binet scale requires a radical revision 
to make it at all suitable to conditions in this country." The 
revision of the Binet tests made by Terman and Childs, as they 
point out, "has made the lower end of the Scale more dijfficult 
by setting back many of the tests of Binet's higher years, and 
the upper range has been supplemented . . . and some of the 
tests even discarded . . . Believing that tests of memory, vo- 
cabulary, observation, reasoning, and reaction to a complex 
social or moral situation bring out fundamental characteristics 
of mental ability, we have given our scattered range of tests 
on memory, questions of comprehension, reasoning tests in- 
volving observation, linguistic invention, and association, such 
as the completion test, and rearranging a sentence of mixed 
words, vocabulary, etc., so that a child of any age will be tested 
on a number of these important questions," 

Daugherty (19) applied the 191 1 series to 483 public school 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 59 

children with the following results: 30 per cent passed at age, 
18 per cent above age, 42 per cent below age. Of the 483 
children, 45 per cent were in the school grade normal to their 
chronological age, 49.3 per cent were retarded, and 5.6 per cent 
were advanced. When distributed according to mental age 48.7 
per cent were in the school grade normal to that age, 21.1 per 
cent were retarded, and 30.2 per cent were advanced. 

Goddard graded four hundred institution feeble-minded with 
the 1908 series. He read the classified grading to the teachers 
and other officers of the institution and asked for criticisms 
upon the classification. The object of the exercise was to 
determine whether the individuals classed together by the Binet- 
Simon system would be so classed by the people who had had 
school and other types of acquaintance with them. The result 
was that no individual was considered by the majority as not 
belonging to the class in which his name was presented to them. 
One necessarily must doubt the validity of a judgment obtained 
under such circumstances as this. The classified list was read 
to the teachers. The members of this institution doubtless were 
already prejudiced in favor of the system adopted for use there, 
and in the judgment of their psychologist. Their minds were 
not left free for unprejudiced judgment. 

Kuhlman (14) asked the teachers and other officials to grade 
fifty institution feeble-minded into five groups. These children 
graded from eight to twelve years mental age by the tests. Of 
the result he says, "The most striking fact about this table is 
the frequent wide range of disagreement of the teachers' grad- 
ings. For nine children these grades differ by four years, for 
nine others they differ by three years, for nineteen by two years, 
and for seven there is complete agreement. There can be no 
question about the fact that the Binet-Simon tests do not make 
half as frequent or as great errors in the mental ages as are 
included in these gradings based on careful, prolonged obser- 
vation by experienced observers on this class of children. In 
other words, the chances for error with the tests are much 
less and are smaller when they do occur than is the case with the 
grading of any one individual experienced observer when this 



6o CLARA SCHMITT 

grading is on the usual general observation." The answer to 
this objection is that there are many considerations to enter 
into the estimation of the intelligence of any subject, and dif- 
ferent teachers may have had different bases for their standards 
of judgment. We do not know what was the standard of the 
individuals who passed judgment. It is possible that each teacher 
had in mind that subject of instruction which it was his func- 
tion to impart. For one it may have been reading, for another, 
manual training. According to the writer's observation ability 
of defectives in the two subjects varies widely. The various 
Binet series provide no test for either, — if one takes into account 
the rule for grading for the series prior to 191 1. The official 
concerned with the institution routine work may have had in 
mind as his standard the reliability of the child in such work. 
The value to be placed upon any judgment of general mental 
ability is proportional to the number of items taken into con- 
sideration and the weighting given those different items. We 
do not know in view of the disagreement whether in this case 
it was the judgment of some of the teachers or the rating 
arrived at by the use of the Binet tests which was most reliable. 
Since there was so great disagreement between these people 
who were well equipped by experience and observation to make 
a judgment and the tests, it is probable that the former took 
into consideration certain factors which might well be included 
in any system of mental measurement. 

The extensive pieces of work upon the Binet-Simon tests 
quoted above show, also, the lack of correlation between the 
series and the child's ability to succeed with the work of the 
school. The Binet tests, therefore, while professing to test 
native ability are concerned very little with the education which 
all normal children have the native ability to acquire, and which 
is O'f much importance in civilized life. The school is busy 
during the first four years of the child's school life developing 
ability in the processes of reading, writing and arithmetic. In 
in the new series there is none at all. The arithmetic tests are: 
the 1908 series there was no reading test before eight years and 
a counting test; a test of the combination of the numbers 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 6r 

2, 2, 2, I, I, I ; and making change for a quarter. The school 
teaches during the years for which these tests are designed 
more complex processes than these. Along with and after the 
mastery of the early subjects of formal instruction, the school 
is concerned with their application, especially of reading, to the 
acquisition of a systematized body of information, such as geog- 
raphy, history, etc. We have then to conclude, that since the 
1908 series falls short of measuring the abilities which the 
school expects to develop, the 191 1 series is still more open to 
criticism. 

In the work of the public school ability to read is of the 
greatest importance because upon it depends all further progress 
in the school. Number conceptions and knowledge of the pro- 
cesses of their combinations are of so great importance in the 
practical activities of every day life that arithmetic occupies a 
large part of the time of the public school. Mentally defective 
children in the public school display their defectiveness in their 
slowness or failure in acquiring the processes of reading and 
number work. Any set of tests which fails to explore these 
realms of mental activity can be of little value as a measuring 
scale for backward children brought to the clinic of the public 
school. We must conclude, then, that at least the lower end 
of the Binet-Simon scale does not measure the ability of a 
child in accordance with the social standards set for him. 

The second psychological fallacy implicit in the grading of 
mental defectives according to mental age is seen in the false 
assumption that a defective individual of any age, who tests 
to a certain mental age according to the Binet-Simon scale, is 
equivalent to or identical with the normal child of correspond- 
ing chronological age. Examples which illustrate this point may 
be quoted from the clinical studies made by Huey (20). He says 
of case 22 : "In school Hilda reads poorly in the first reader, 
adds and subtracts very little, is poor in spelling, zvriting and 
industrial work, hut dances zvell. She gives only momentary 
attention to anything, gets on fairly well with others, and her 
worst fault is stated to he her insistence on being the center of 
attraction. She is most restless and 'always sits on one leg or 



62 CLARA SCHMITT 

twisted around in her seat.' She appears bright, &nd even 
spontaneous, hut she does not get the work done. She is over- 
demonstrative of her affection for persons whom she likes. The 
Binet tests give her a mental age of eight and one-half years, a 
retardation of two years. She could not repeat i6 syllables, 
could not count stamps, nor backward from 20 to 0, could not 
write a four word phrase when heard, could not give the date 
even approximately, nor make change, name the months, or 
arrange weights. Hilda has learned to write with moderate 
legibility, but cannot use writing to any purpose. In trying to 
reproduce stories I and II and to write of a trip in a flying- 
machine, she wrote p, 6 and 4 lines respectively, being a hotch 
potch such as 'a fat pig a hoig to leand a good heven Cand a 
sometime cand.' etc. Instead of writing similars and opposites, 
in the tests for these, she either copied the words with strange 
transpositions and changes, or occasionally wrote some appar- 
ently unrelated word or series of letters. . She crossed 4p and 77 
A's in tzvo minutes each, with no errors. Her tapping record 
counted to nearly normal, but she showed exceedingly poor con- 
trol, tensing her fingers into knots, hammering the key. etc." All 
of this description points out in a very striking way the defects 
of Hilda's mentality as compared with that of the normal 8- 
year-old child in the school. The normal child of this age can 
do more than read poorly in the first reader, has a knowledge 
of arithmetic processes such as enables him to make changes 
within one dollar; to recognize related units of measure, such 
as inch, foot; minute, hour, day, week; pint, quart; cent, nickel, 
dime, quarter, half-dollar? dollar; to use the tables of two's 
and three's; to count by two's to 24 and by three's to 36; 
to tell half of any multiple of two to 24 and one-third of any 
multiple of three to 36; to read and write numbers of one and 
two orders ; to read time by the clock to hour, half hour, quarter 
hour; and to answer any of the 45 addition and subtraction 
facts. [According to the 1912 Course of Study for the Second 
Grade of the Elementary Public Schools of Chicago.] The 
child of 8 years can use writing to some purpose; he can or- 
ganize his mental life with reference to this accomplishment 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 63 

SO that he does not produce the results which were quoted of 
Hilda. 

Another example of this fallacy is that of Robert P., quoting 
from the volume mentioned above. "In school Robert reads 
fairly in the first reader only, does some addition and subtrac- 
tion, but failed on 5 x 2 and 4 x i. He does well in calisthenics 
and likes to 'lead.' He is also good at dancing and in basketry. 
In manual work he is generally quite satisfactory, only working 
by fits and starts, though occasionally he turns in and zvorks hard 
for a time. . . . Mentally Robert shows an intelligence of nine 
years zvith a retardation of five and one-half years. His speech 
is nasal, but he can articulate normally. -He could repeat five 
numerals but once in seven trials, could not count from 20 to 0, 
nor make change of 4 cents from 2^, name the months, detect 
nonsense in sentences, or give 6 of the /p details about 
the 'fire.' He seems to be bored with the trouble of think- 
ing. He did not make absurd replies, but was merely weak in 
his adaptations and at the same time rather self-satisfied with 
them. 'Not very hard' was his characteristic reply after utterly 
failing to rearrange the shuffled words of a sentence. . . . In 
the zvritten tests the work is very weak both in quantity and 
quality. His handwriting is irregular almost to scribbling, 
though large and therefore moderately legible. His mis-spell- 
ings, as in some of the other cases, suggest a form of agraphia." 
It is needless to point out that the normal child of nine years 
can do more than read in the first reader, would not fail on 
5 X 2, is not bored with the trouble of thinking, and is not 
satisfied with absurd results, such as were mentioned in Robert's 
case. 

In the cases described above one also sees along with the 
fallacious assumption which they disclose, the failure of the 
Binet tests, alone, to adequately describe or explore the mental 
life of any subject. This inadequacy of the Binet tests is strik- 
ingly shown in the description of a case which was discussed 
by the writer in the above mentioned article: — "But the writer 
feels impelled to assert that if there were complete agreement 
between the test findings and school grade they would still, alone, 
constitute an inadequate measure of mental ability or mental de- 



64 CLARA SCHMITT 

velopment. The best possible illustration of this is afforded by 
the description of a boy by Holmes in a recent article. The 
Classification of Clinic Cases. The following is an abstract of 
Holme's description of the case : The case was that of a six-year- 
old hoy who had been in school for six months without having 
made any progress in the work of the school in spite of the fact 
that an adult sister attempted every evening to teach him his 
lessons for the next day; he cried when struck by his playmates 
or when hurt by his playthings but did not strike back or in any 
way try to defend himself and would run to his mother for help; 
he could assemble the parts of electrical apparatus, arranging 
cells, wires, and bells so they would ring; could connect an in- 
candescent lamp so it could be lighted; coidd start and operate 
a gas engine by himself. In commenting upon this case Dr. 
Holmes fell in the fallacy of an uncritical acceptance of the 
Binet tests when he said, Tt presaged what was revealed by 
the Binet tests, namely that the boy was one year beyond the 
mental attainment of the average boy of his age,' that is, he 
had passed the Binet tests for seven years. In the case of 
this boy were found by Dr. Holmes four distinct judgments. 
His sister and the school thought him a dullard ; his father, with 
whom he worked at the electrical apparatus, thought him all 
right; his playmates considered him a mollycoddle; and the 
Binet tests classified him as somewhat precocious. No two of 
these judgments were the result of the same set of data. The 
school judged him by his proficiency in acquiring the processes 
of reading, writing, and number conceptions; the Binet tests 
have nothing to do with these school abilities except counting 
to thirteen and writing from copy in the seven-year-old tests, 
in either of which he may have failed and still be graded 
one year ahead of his age. Neither is there in the Binet tests 
anything which would hint at or indicate his ability with 
mechanical contrivances; nor that his social reactions would 
be as they were. Should the school and social disabilities be 
persisted in through life or for several years he certainly would 
not escape being considered a defective. It is also clearly in- 
dicative of the inadequacy of these tests that Dr. Holmes could 
not give a description of the case in terms of their result. He 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 65 

had to resort to other facts in order to present a true picture. 
We certainly can not agree with him that this boy had the men- 
tal attainments of a normal boy of seven years. In that case 
we should have to believe that the majority of seven-year-old 
boys possess his mechanical efficiency and his academic ineffi- 
ciency, which is not true. Children of six can learn to read 
and if children of seven can assemble the parts of a gas engine 
and run it without adult supervision no one knows it. In the 
case of this boy there was one and possibly there were two 
of his social relationships in which he failed to function prop- 
erly, namely, in his reaction to the school and to his playmates. 
It would seem to be the legitimate business of the psychological 
clinic to find why he thus failed. Was the defect in his school 
work due to a lack of ability for that type of activity, to lack 
of interest in it; or was it a result of his defective social re- 
sponse? And what was the cause of this latter defect? 

Another case showing the inadequacy of the Binet tests to 
describe a case of mental defect was described by the writer 
in the above mentioned article as follows : "This case was a 
boy, Frank, aged sixteen. Following are his reactions to the 
Binet series copied from the notes of the writer made as they 
were given. 
Eight Year Tests : 

1. Comparison of butterfly and fly, etc., passed. 

2. Counts backwards, passed ( ?) (Forgot where he was once 

and had to ask what had said last). 

3. Notes omission eyes, etc., passed. 

4. Date, failed. 

5. Repeats five numerals, passed (once out of three trials). 

Nine Year Tests : 

1. Makes change, passed (25 cents — 9 cents. Instead of mak- 

ing the change told that one could receive it in the smallest 
number of pieces in a nickel, a dime, and a penny). 

2. Definitions superior to use, failed. 

3. Recognizes money, passed. 

4. Months of the year, failed. 

5. Problem situations, passed. 



66 CLARA SCHMITT 

Ten Year Tests: 

1. Arranges weights, passed. 

2. Copies design, passed. 

3. Detects incongruities, failed. 

4. Problem situations, failed. 

5. Three given words in a sentence, failed (Chicago has 

money in the river). 
Twelve Year Tests : 

1. Resists suggestion, passed. 

2. Three words in a sentence, failed, 

3. Utters 60 words in three minutes, failed; (27 words. 

Pauses much, though urged to go fast). 

4. Definitions, failed. (Charity? "Don't know." Justice? 

"Justice of the peace." Goodness? "Gracious.") 

5. Rearranges shuffled words in a sentence, failed. 

According to the Binet series this boy grades nine years of 
age, and it might be thought is a fit candidate for the feeble- 
minded institution. The further disabilities which these tests 
do not disclose are as follows : 

1. He cannot recognize any printed words and not all of 
the alphabet, though kept in school the regulation time. 

2. He can write only his own and his brother's names. Told 
to write the cat ran away wrote the set, though he could spell 
cat correctly. 

3. He can do simple number combinations such as 5 plus 6, 
10 minus 4, by counting his fingers. 

4. He knows only that his birthday comes in the summer; 
said, "My mother told me but I always forget." 

5. He has very poor control of associations which do not 
provide a sense stimulus as is shown in his reactions to the 
opposite test. Out of 20 stimulus words he reacted correctly 
to only 6, gave a wrong association for 10, and failed entirely 
for 4 of the stimulus words. 

6. He is very suggestible. In the Aussage test accepted 5 
out of 7 suggestions. 

The positive abilities which this boy possesses and which the 
Binet tests cannot disclose are : 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 67 

1. He can do a test involving the planning of a complex set 
of spatial relationships in a planned and comprehensive way. 
This ability is disclosed by test IV of the Healy-Fernald series. 

2. He has the ability to do in a planned and comprehensive 
way a test requiring the analysis of the functional relationships 
of a simple mechanical contrivance, as is disclosed by test V. 
of the Healy-Fernald series. He also did tests I, H, and HI 
of this series in the manner considered intelligent in the grading 
adopted in the work of the clinic. 

The history of the boy's industrial life correlates with the 
inference that one might draw from his performance with the 
mechanical tests. He has been an efficient farm laborer for 
some months, worked satisfactorily for a creamery for a time 
loading and unloading cans etc., and as a janitor for a small 
school building. He is capable of earning his living without 
direct supervision." 

The faults of the Binet-Simon series may then be summed up 
as follows : 

1. The assumption of serial mental development from early 
childhood to adult age. 

2. The omission of tests of socially significant abilities. 

3. Failure to distinguish certain innate abilities from a cer- 
tain expression of them due to age or experience. 

4. Is not an accurate measure of mental development of 
normal children. 

5. The assumption that a defective is quantitatively rather 
than qualitatively different from a normal individual. This 
point is discussed further on p. 164. 

There is a further lack in the series which has been implied 
in the description of Frank. With the Binet series alone one 
might have had no hint as to his industrial possibilities. The 
mechanical tests of the Healy-Fernald type, it is possible, may 
be made to supply such deficiency. To determine this, studies 
for the purpose of correlating them with the handwork of 
the school or other places where such activities can be measured 
need to be made. 



V 
DISCUSSION OF BINET-SIMON TABLES 

The reactions to the Binet-Simon tests have been summarized 
in the following seven tables. Each table is arranged with refer- 
ence to grade, one for each grade. The first column of num- 
bers at the extreme left of each table refers to the individual 
children. The age of each child is in the second left hand 
column, and the results of the individual tests are recorded in 
the following columns. A plus sign indicates success and V 
failure with the tests according to the Binet-Simon grading, 
and where modifications from the French are required those 
adopted by Goddard are followed. Where the author has 
further modified the standard for grading has been indicated in 
the text of discussion and in the case of some tests by footnote 
to the tables. 

The tests were given with the Healy-Fernald tests to the group 
of children described on page 2. These children were 
considered normal by the teachers who had them in charge. No 
child known to be defective or seriously backward is admitted 
to the school. There were some retarded members, the extent 
of which is shown in table VIII below. The causes assigned 
by the teachers for retarded cases were, in general, illness, de- 
layed start to school because of the theory of the parent that 
such a course was best for the child, and the interruption of 
regular study by travel. 

The general technique of procedure was adopted with reference 
to demands of the Healy-Fernald tests. It is discussed further 
on page 86. 

In the conduct of the two sets of tests the Binet-Simon tests 
were reserved for the last. By the time they were reached the 
child had been doing tests for an hour or more. In some cases 
there was too much restlessness and fatigue to carry the child as 
far as the majority of his comrades in his grade were able to go 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS (iCj 

and the tests were then discontinued. This accounts for the 
unevenness of the right hand side of some of the tables. 

Binet-Simon Record of Kindergarten. — Table I shows the 
record made by the twenty-four kindergarten children. A 
glance at the table for the tests below nine years shows that 
the greatest amount of failure occurs with the following tests: 
the 6-3 test,* six failures to copy the lozenge. When watching 
these children work at this test one comes ■ to the conclusion 
that the failure is due to lack of muscular control. The fre- 
quently heroic and often unsuccessful attempt to draw the 
slanting lines of the lozenge is easily apparent. Seven fail at 
y-2,, describe a picture; 15 at 7-4, give the value of nine cents; 
9 at 8-2, to count backward. 

The counting backward test was not an utter failure on the 
part of any child graded ^ . Those so graded were able to 
comprehend the problem sufficiently well to make a reasonable 
attempt at it, and to get more than two-thirds of the required 
terms correct. The errors were mostly those of omission. They 
come about in this way; the child has successfully reached per- 
haps fifteen in his backward progress toward one, and here 
he pauses to go through the process discussed above by which he 
determines the next term in the series. He counts up from 
some term nearer one and having come up to fifteen again, 
says thirteen instead of fourteen. 

Twenty-four children fail at 8-4, the date; nine at 8-5, to 
repeat five digits. The 7-4 and 8-4 tests concern themselves with 
bits of specific instruction not included in the curriculum of the 
kindergarten. 

Of the nine year tests the first four are tests of the results of 
specific school instruction. The 9-2 test, defines in terms super- 
ior to use, may be classed as such because of the usual school 
exercise of defining words found in the reading and other exer- 
cises of the school. The fifth one is a test which involves having 
formed a generalized rule of action for a given situation. Of 
the eighteen children who were given the nine year tests, failure 
was the rule with the first four. Eleven of the eighteen were 
*This convention is adopted to indicate test III of the six year group. 



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72 CLARA SCHMITT 

able to so generalize experience into rules of action as to succeed 
with the fifth test according to the Binet standard. No child of 
the eighteen failed to answer at least one of the problems 
correctly. 

Binet-Simon Record of the First Grade. — Passing to the record 
of the first grade, Table II, we find that here again the tests below 
ten years which depend upon specific instruction are usually not 
passed except the 7-4 test. The material of this test is included in 
the curriculum of this grade. The 9-5 test of experience is univer- 
sally passed. Perhaps one may venture upon the theory that it 
is because the children of the first grade have had more and 
broader social experience than those of the kindergarten. The 
10-3, 10-4, and 10-5 tests, are passed by approximately two thirds 
of the first grade children. There is almost entire failure with the 
10-2, test of visual memory, and more than fifty per cent of 
failure with the discrimination oi weight. 

Binet-Simon Record of the Second Grade. — With the second 
grade. Table III, the reaction to the 10-3, 10-4, and 10-5 tests 
remains the same as for the first grade, as do practically the 
weight discrimination and visual memory tests. The 12-4 test, 
definition of abstract terms, is generally missed, and the 12-5, 
test of rearrangement of words to make a sentence. This test 
was graded V in accordance with Binet's standard of the time 
factor, failure in one minute. Many of the children were given 
more time and several trials and finally accomplished the result. 
It is characteristic of the child who fails according to the Binet 
standard that he is unable to see the sentence entirely. He puts 
a few words together in the right relation and a few others in 
their right relation, and then he finally criticises the whole pro- 
duct. In no case was a child who failed to do the test satisfied 
with his result. 

This is in striking contrast with the behavior of the defective 
child. The latter does not criticize his failures. If he tries to 
perform the test he is usually satisfied with the result. 



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-^ 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 


>> 

o 


ro 


+ + + +>+>+ + + 


+ + + + + + + 




M 


> > ++> > >> + + 


>>+>+>> 




-1 


>>> + + +>> + + 


> +>>> +> 




lO 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 




^ 


>>+ + + +> + + + 


>++>+++ 


1-^ 
>> 


ro 


>+ + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 


On 


0> 


>+ + +>+ + + +> 


+ >>+ + + > 




^ 


>+>+ + + >+ + > 


>+ + + + + + 




lO 


+ + + + >+ + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 




^ 


+ + + + >+ + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 




ro 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + > + 


00 


<M 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + > 




hH 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + + 




IT) 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + 




'^ 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + 


>> 


ro 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + 


t^ 


<M 


■+ + >>+>+ + + + 


+ + + + + + 




UH 


+ + + + + + + + + + 


+ + + + + + 




lO 


+ + 


+ + 




^ 


+ + 


+ + 




CO 


+ + 


+ + 


^C> 


0) 


+ + 


+ + 




^ 


+ > 


4- -1- 




p 

bo 


vo i^ooopoo 0\0\2 2 Y 


00 7 t-°9 <? V 'P 




< 


i^r^txrvt^t^t^j!^il^iN. 


00 CO °0 °0 00 <^ 


1 


ojvo p\t^00 txfoO '^i-^ 
coco?) cCfOiN cocororo 


CO (?) C) IN W ^ W 



74 



CLARA SCHMITT 



Binet-Simon Record of Third Grade. — The children of the 
third grade, Table IV, continue in large numbers to fail in the 
lo-i, 10-2, 12-4, and 12-5 tests. It is interesting to note that the 
reaction to the 12-1 test of suggestion has changed in character. 
The second grade child made no error in his judgment, but the 
third grade child, perhaps in his desire to exercise great care, fell 
into the error of judgment which has been discussed above. 

TABLE IV 







Reaction of Third Grade Children to Binet-Simon Tests 










Binet 


Ages 








8 yr. 


9 yr- 


ID yr. 


12 yr. 


Grade 


Men- 
tal 


No. 


Age 


12345 


12345 


12345 


12345 


Age 


20 


8 


-I- + + + + 


-f-f + V + 


+ -f + + + 


+ + V V V 


3 


loVs 


21 


8-2 


+ + + + + 


+ -f + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + V 


3 


loj/s 


6 


8-8 


+ + + + -f 


+ -f + + + 


V V -I- + + 


+ + + V V 


3 


loVs 


12 


8-9 


+ + + + + 


+ + + -f + 


V + + + + 


+ -h-i-+ V 


3 


loVs 


10 


8-10 


-f + + + + 


-f + + + + 


+ + + -f + 


+ + + V + 


3 


loYs 


2 


9 


+ -f + + + 


+ + + + + 


V V 4--I- + 


+ + V -f V 


3 


loVs 


3* 


9 


+ -f + + + 


+ + + + V 


4- V + + +t 


+ V V V V 


3 


9Ys 


13 


9-2 


+ + -f +-f 


+ + + V + 


+ V -f + + 


-f-f V-h V 


3 


loVs 


5 


9-2 


+ + + +-f 


+ + + + + 


-t--f + + + 


+ + V V V 


3 


10^5 


7 


9-2 


-f + -f + + 


V + + + + 


V V + + -H 


+ + + 4- V 


3 


10^ 


8 


9-2 


+ + -t--f + 


-f + -f + -f 


-t- + -f + -{- 


+ + + V V 


3 


loH 


I 


9-3 


-f + -f + + 


+ + + + + 


V V -f + + 


+ + V + V 


3 


lOVs 


II 


9-4 


-f -f + -f + 


-F-f + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + V 


3 


loVs 


4 


9-4 


+ + + + + 


+ -f + + + 


+ V +-f + 


+ + + V V 


3 


10^ 


9 


9-4 


-f + + -f + 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


+ + + + V 


3 


110^ 


17 


9-9 


+ + + + + 


+ + -f -f-f 


+ V + + + 


+ + + V V 


3 


TOVs 


16 


9-9 


-f -f + + + 


+ + + + + 


V + + + -I- 


+ + 4--f V 


3 


loVs 


18 


9-1:1 


+ + -f + H- 


-I- + + V + 


-f -f + + + 


+ -i--f -f V 


3 


ioj4 


14 


10-2 


-f + + -f + 


+ + -^ + + 


V + + -f + 


+ + V V V 


3 


loVi 


15 


10-4 


+ V + + + 


4- + + + + 


+ -f -l--f + 


+ -t- + + -f 


3 


I2-II 


19 


10-4 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + -f 


V + + + + 


+ + V V V 


3 


loH 



+ Wrong judgment. 

t V with Chicago, money, river, with boy, river, ball. 
* Considered a pathologically timid case, but not lacking in ability, 
apparently due to fear of expressing a wrong judgment. 



V's 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



75 



Binct-Sirnon Record of Fourth Grade. — The fourth grade, 
Table V, shows much the same type of reactions as the third 
grade. 



TABLE V 







Reaction of Fourth Grade Children to Binet-Simon Tests 










Binet Ages 










8 yr. 


9 yr. 


10 yr. 


12 yr. 


Grade 


Men- 
tal 


No. 


Age 


12345 


12345 


12345 


12345 


Idi 

Age 


41 


9 


-f -f-f + + 


-f -}--|- + -|- 


-f V + + + 


V + + V + 


4 


10^ 


40 


9-5 


-f-^ + + + 


4-++++ 


4- V + + + 


4--F + -f + 


4 


10^ 


47 


9-9 


-f-f + -f -1- 


+-^+ V + 


V +-f + -f 


+ + + + V 


4 


10^ 


53 


9-9 


+ + + -f-+- 


+ V + + + 


V +-|- + -f 


+ + + V V 


4 


10^ 


56 


9-9 


+ ^- + + + 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


V + + -f V 


4 


lOj^ 


51 


9-10 


+ + + + -f 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


+ + + + + 


4 


105^ 


48 


9-10 


-f -i--f + -i- 


+ + + + -f 


-}- + + -f -f 


+ -l--h-f- V 


4 


105^ 


45 


10 


+ -f + + + 


+ -I--H + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + 4- V 


4 


102/5 


50 


lO-I 


+ + -f -f + 


-I- + + + + 


■f + + + -f 


-f V + + V 


4 


103/^ 


55 


10-2 


-f + -f- + + 


+ -h + + -F 


+ V ++ + 


-H-f + V V 


4 


10^ 


52 


10-2 


+ -f + + + 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + + V 


4 


10^ 


46 


10-4 


+ + + + -f 


V -f-f + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + + V 


4 


103^ 


49 


10-4 


+ -f- + + + 


-f + + + + 


V V + + + 


V +4-+ V 


4 


103^ 


54 


10-5 


+ + + + + 


+ -f + + -f 


-f V + + + 


4- + + 4- + 


4 


lOfS 


57 


10-5 


-!- + + + + 


+ -f-f- + + 


-f + -f + + 


+ 4-4-4- V 


4 


105^ 


44 


10-5 


+ + + + -f 


+ -[- + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ 4- + 4- V 


4 


I03/ 


61 


10-8 


-f -f- + -f-f 


V -F + + -f 


V +-}- + + 


-f + 4- V V 


4 


io>^ 


59 


10-9 


-f- + + + -f 


-f + + -t- + 


+ V -f + + 


+ 4-4-4- V 


4 


I03/ 


60 


10-9 


-F + + + + 


+ -f + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ 4- + 4- V 


4 


I03/ 


58 


1 1-2 


+ + + + + 


-f + + + + 


V + + -f-|- 


+ -f 4- V V 


4 


10?^ 


62, 


1 1-6 


-f-i- + + + 


V -f ++-f 


V + + + + 


+ 4-4- V V 


4 


10^ 


m 


12-2 


-{- + + + 4- 


+ -f-f- + + 


-f--f + + -f 


+ 4-4-4-4- 


4 


12 



+ Wrong judgment, opposite to suggestion judgment. 

15 yr. 

t Add to No. 62 one column as follows : V 4" V V + 



76 



CLARA SCHMITT 



Binet-Simon Record of Fifth Grade. — The fifth grade, Table 
VI, shows itself capable of doing the 12-5 test and fails in large 
numbers in the lo-i and 10-2 tests. The 15-3, test of memory 
of sentence of twenty-six syllables, and the 15-4, interpretation of 
a picture, were generally failure. 



TAiBLE VI 

Reaction of Fifth Grade Children to Binet-Simon Tests 

Binet Ages 





9 yr. 


10 yr. 


12 yr. 


15 yr. 


Grade 


Men 
ag 


tal 


No. Age 


12345 


12345 


12345 


I 2 3 4 5t 


e 


66 


10-3 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + V B 


5 


125^ or 


iiVs 


65 


10-3 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + V + 


5 


125^ 




64 


10-5 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V V 


5 


12^ 


II 


67 


10-6 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + + + 


V V V V V 


5 . 


12 


10/5 


69 


10-6 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + + 


5 


l2Ys 


iiVs 


72 


II 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V B 


5 


12^ 


II 


71 


11-2 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + V 


+ + V V + 


5 


12/5 


iiVs 


73 


ri-2 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


V + V V + 


5 


12^5 


II 


68 


ii-S 


+ + + V + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + V 


V + V + A 


5 


105^ 


103/ 


70 


II-5 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V + 


5 


123/^ 


11/ 


74 


1 1-6 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


+ + + + + 


V + V V + 


5 


12/5 


II 


78 


1 1-6 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V A 


5 


12^ 


II 


79 


1 1-8 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V A 


5 


122/5 


II 


77 


12 


-- + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + V 


+ + V + + 


5 


l2Vi 


iiVs 


76 


12^1 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V + 


5 


I2V5 


iiVs 


75 


12-2 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


+ + + + + 


V + V V + 


5 


12^ 


lOJ/s 


83 


l'2-6 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


V V V V B 


5 


12 


mVs 


80 


12-7 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 


+ + V V + 


+ V V V + 


5 


loVs 


10^ 


82 


12-7 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + V 


V + V V + 


5 


I2H 


11/ 


84 


12-11 


+ + + + + 


V V + + + 






5 


9^/^ 




81 


12-11 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


V + V V + 


5 


12V5 


II 


85 


13-8 


+ + + + + 


+ V + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + V v + 


5 


12V5 


11/ 



+ Wrong judgment. 

t A and B indicate problems i and 2, respectively, of the test passed. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



77 



Binet-Simon Record of Sixth Grade. — The reactions of the 
sixth grade, Table VII, were much the same as those of the fifth. 
The adult tests were given to the sixth grade as a class, the 
results being written by the children and handed in. Of the 
adult tests, number 2, rearranges a triangle, and 3, give differ- 
ences in meanings of abstract terms, were answered by two thirds 
of the class. The matter of test four is not a part of the organ- 
ized civics work of this grade, and the information in sufficiently 
organized form to permit of an attempt to answer the question 
must have been obtained through general reading by those who 
succeeded. 



TABLE VII 

'Reaction of Sixth Grade Children to Binet-Simon Tests 
Binet Ages 







12 yr. 


15 yr. 


Adult 




Mental 
age 


No. 


Age 


1234s 


12 3 4 5 


1234s 


Grade 


115 


12 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


6 


A 


116 


12 


+ + + + V 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


6 


15^ 


124 


12 


+ + + + V 


V + V V + 


+ V V + + 


6 


12 


105 


12-1 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + V 


V ++ V + 


6 


I2>^ 


109 


12-1 


+ + + + + 


+ + + + + 


+ + + V V 


6 


15^/^ 


104 


12-1 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + + 


+ V + + + 


6 


15V5 


123 


12-1 


+ + + + + 


+ + V V + 


V + + V + 


6 


15H 


III 


12-2 


+ + + + + 


+ V V V + 


V + V V + 


6 


12^ 


100 


12-2 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + V 


+ + + + V 


6 


15^ 


114 


12-3 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + + 


+ + V V V 


6 


153^ 


102 


12-6 


+ +++ V 


+ + V + V 


V + + V V 


6 


125^ 


106 


12-6 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + + 


V V + V + 


6 


isVs 


119 


12-8 


+ + + + + 


V + V + + 


V V + V V 


6 


12^ 


118 


12-8 


+ + + + + 


V + + + + 


V + + + V 


6 


15?^ 


113 


12-8 


+ + + + + 


+ V V + + 


+ + + + + 


6 


A or 153/^ 


108 


12-9 


+ + V + + 


+ + V + + 


V V V V V 


6 


10 or II 


103 


12-9 


+ -f + + + 


+ + V + V 


V V V V V 


6 


12V5 


120 


12-11 


+ + + + + 


+ V V + + 


V ++ V + 


6 


is'A 


99 


13 


+ + + + + 


+ V V V A 


V + V V V 


6 


I2ji 


122 


13 


+ + + + V 


+ V V V + 


V ++ V + 


6 


l2Ys 


117 


13-4 


+ + + + + 


V V V V + 


V + ++ V 


6 


I2J/5 


no 


13-5 


+ + + + + 


+ + V + V 


+ + + + V 


6 


iSVs 


107 


14-2 


+ + + + V 


V V V V V 


V + V V V 


6 


12 



78 



CLARA SCHMITT 



The final column of each table shows the mental age attained by- 
each individual. Where the ages of ten and twelve and fifteen 
overlap there is some ambiguity as to the grading for mental age. 
Should the children who fail in some of the ten year tests but 
make the additional five in the twelve and fifteen sets be graded 
eleven years or twelve years mentally? The type of performance 
with the 1 2- 1 test also complicates the grading. Where there 
may he an alternative grade the fact has been indicated in an 
additional column. 

The results are arranged in table VIII which shows the rela- 
tion of chronological age to mental age. In this table are 
indicated the alternative gradings and the resulting alternative 
percentages. The 150 children grade 14 per cent (or 20) 
retarded, 26 per cent (or 24) normal, and 55 per cent (or 54) 
advanced. 

Table VIII 

























Re- 


Nor- 


A( 


1- 






















^H 


tarded 


mal 


vanced 




u 




u 




u 


' 






















OJ 


aj 




HI 




QJ 












Mental Age 






^ 


a 




B 

:3 




1 

3 




Chronolog- 




















8 
3 






















^ 




ical age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


II 


12 


15 


A. 


^ 


^ 


^ 


:z, 


^ 


^ 


^ 


5 to S-6 


2 


I 
















3 














3 


100 


5-6 to 6-6 


3 


7 


4 














14 








3 


21 


II 


78 


6-6 to 7-^ 


I 


3 


8 


6 












18 


I 


5 


3 


16 


14 


77 


7-6 to 8-6 




I 


3 


II 


ID 










25 


I 


4 


3 


12 


21 


84 


8-6 to 9-6 








3 


18 










21 








3 


14 


18 


8S 


9-6 to 10-6 














4 

or 






























19 


[3] 


I 






23 








19 


82 


4 


17 












5 




6 








5 


45 








6 


54 


10-6 to 1 1-6 










or 




or 








or 




or 




or 














7 


[4] 









II 


7 


63 


4 


36 























9 














9 


56 






1 1-6 to 12-6 










or 




or 








or 




or 


















I 


[5] 


3 


6 


I 


16 


6 


38 


3 


18 


7 


43 












2 




9 


4 


I 
















12-6 to 13-6 










or 




or 


or 


or 
























I 


3 


[3] 


5 


S 





17 


12 


70 








5 


29 


13-6 to 14-6 














2 






2 


2 


100 










Total 


















150 


21 


14 


40 


26 


88 


58 
























or 


or 


or 




or 





30 20 37 24 81 54. 
Showing the relation of chronological to mental age of 150 normal children,. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 79 

With these resuhs we may compare those of table IX, which 
shows the relation of grade to chronological age. The numbers 
in heavy type mark those of normal age for the grade. Since 
the data was obtained at the end of the school year the normal 
age for the kindergarten is that of the beginning first grade, for 
the first grade that of the beginning second grade, etc. — that is, 
the kindergarten children were ready for the first grade and 
became first grade children at the beginning of the next year. 
The table shows that 38 per cent are retarded, 56 per cent 
normal and 4 per cent advanced with respect to their school 
work as compared with the 14 per cent, 26 per cent and 58 
per cent respectively with respect to Binet-Simon mental age. 















TABLE 


IX 
























Age Grade Correlation 
































Re- 


'N 


or- 


Ad- 








Chronolog 


ical Age 








tarded 


mal 


vanced 












vo 


vo vo 


^ 


^ 
















1 


^ 


^ 


1 





f*5 


















1 


t^ 


00 


o\ 







Q 



















\o 




















^ 


^ 




•s 




^ 













-l-l 


VO VO 


VO 


VO 


E 


a 




S 




6 






M3 


\o 


vo 




' ' 


1 




3 


n 




s 




n 


Grade 


10 


1 
VO 


t^ 


1 

00 


>-< 


01 




:s 


iz; 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ ^ 


Kdg. 


17 


6 


2 












25 


8 


32 


17 


68 





I 




12 


7 


I 










20 


8 


40 


12 


60 





II 






12 


5 










17 


5 


29 


12 


70 





III 






2 


13 


6 








21 


6 


28 


13 


61 


2 9 


IV 








2 


14 


4 2 






22 


6 


27 


14 


63 


2 9 


V 










3 


7 6 


5 


I 


22 


12 


54 


7 


31 


3 14 


VI 












10 


12 


I 


23 


13 


56 


10 


43 






Total 150 S8 38 85 56 7 4 

Showing relation of grade to chronological age of 150 normal children. 

Table X shows the relation of school grade to the mental 
age grading of the Binet series. If school grade age and Binet 
age correspond the normal Binet age for the Kindergarten 
would be six years, for the first grade seven years, etc. The 
normal mental age for the grade is indicated by the heavy type. 
The number retarded according to the Binet age with reference 
to the normal grade age is 2 per cent (or 4) ; normal, 25 per 
cent (or 35) ; advanced ^2 per cent (or 60). 

The results of the three preceding tables arrange themselves 
as follows : 



8o CLARA SCHMITT 

Retarded Normal Advanced 

14 (or 20) % 26 (or 24) % 58 (or 54) % By Binet Age to Chronological 

Age. 
^8 36 4 By School Grade to Chronological 

Age. 
2 (or 4) 25 (or 35) 72 (or 60) By Binet Age to School Grade Age. 

These figures show the wide variance in the various gradings. 
Where the school grading shows 4 per cent advanced over the 
normal .for the chronological age, the Binet grading shows 58 
per cent over the chronological age and y2 per cent over the 
age normal to the school grade. 

TABLE X 

Re- Nor- Ad- 
tarded mal vanced 





•o 








Mental Age 






•|- 


"1 




1 




S 




c3 


f 

6 
















A. 


;3 


S 
^ 


^ 


g 


^ 









7 


8 


9 


10 


II 


12 


15 


^ 


Kdg. 


6 


II 


8 














25 








6 


24 


19 


1(^ 


I 







7 


II 


2 










20 














20 


100 


II 









7 


10 




I 

or 


I 






17 














17 


100 


III 








I 


19 


[I] 






21 








I 


4 


20 


95 


IV 










21 








22 








21 


95 


I 


4 












2 




19 








3 


13 








19 


86 


V 








I 


or 




or 








or 


or 


or 


or 


or 


or 












5 


[15] 


I 






22 


6 


26 


15 


68 


I 


4 












I 






10 


2 
















VI 










or 


[I] 


10 


or 


or 

































ir 


I 


22, 


I 


4 


10 


43 


12 


52 



Total ISO 4 2 38 25 108 ^2 

or or or or or or 
7 4 53 35 90 60 
Showing relation of normal grade age to Binet mental age of 150 normal 
children. 

Table X when analyzed further shows that below the fourth 
grade the Binet tests are not suited to children with the educa- 
tional experiences of those grades, since from 76 per pent to 
100 per cent are advanced by the Binet tests over the age normal 
to the school grade. At the fourth grade the age normal to 
school grade and the Binet age correspond very closely. At the 
fifth grade the Binet age is advanced or rather close to the 
normal according to the convention chosen for the Binet grad- 
ing. At the sixth grade it is rather evenly divided between 
advanced and normal. 



VI 

STANDARDIZATION AND DISCUSSION OF THE 
HEALY-FERNALD TESTS 

Origin of the Healy-Fernald tests. — The Healy-Fernald set 
of tests was worked out for two purposes. The first was for 
the purpose of supplementing the Binet-Simon series. It was 
discovered in the work of the cHnic that the Binet-Simon series 
failed to explore with sufficient thoroughness the mentality of the 
child. The objections to the Binet-Simon series have been 
discussed ahove. 

The second reason for the preparation of the new tests arose 
from the language difficulty which confronted the workers of 
the clinic. Many children who come to the clinic are of foreign 
parentage or from homes where a foreign language is spoken. 
In many cases they come from parochial schools where little 
English is taught or used. In other cases, especially those of 
rather young children, the reactions to the Binet-Simon tests 
were of doubtful significance, because the tester could not be 
sure that the language in which these tests were given was 
completely understood by the child. The difficulty of using the 
English language with a child from an alien speaking home 
can be appreciated only by one who has mingled with these 
children informally on their own ground. The child confronts 
a situation in which he has not only two languages with which 
to deal, but rather three. There is the foreign language in 
the home, the patois which he gets on the street, and the 
classical language of the cultured person with whom he comes 
in contact at school or other cultural institutions. The street 
patois is surely not an unimportant factor in causing mental 
confusion in the mind of the child. In the realm of patois a 
man is never a man, he is a guy; a boy is never a boy, he is a kid; 
a foolish person is never such, he is a mut; one never stops doing 
something, or is commanded to leave off doing something, he 



82 CLARA SCHMITT 

must always cheese it; and so on interminably. The confusion 
can well be imagined in the mind of the child who, at home, is told 
in a foreign language by his mother to leave off doing some- 
thing; who by his older brothers or street companions is com- 
manded to cheese it; and who by his teacher or other cultured 
person with whom he comes in contact, is in more or less 
classical terms requested to stop his misconduct. If the child 
has never attended a public school, but only a parochial school 
in which English is very little taught, the difficulty of examina- 
tion with such a series of tests as the Binet-Simon, which 
makes use of language almost wholly, can well be imagined. 
For these reasons, tests which show the functioning of intelli- 
gence without the necessity of accuracy in the use o^f language 
were originated by the workers and friends of the Psychopathic 
clinic. 

Evaluation of Results. — In the attempt to express the dif- 
ference between the defective and the normal human intellect 
one is confronted by two possibilities. The first is, that there 
exists a distinguishable qualitative difference. This idea was most 
vividly expressed by Tregold when he said that there exists be- 
tween the highest ament and the lowest normal individual an im- 
passable gulf. The qualitative factor of difference has been 
discussed with reference to the application of the Binet-Simon 
tests to the task of distinguishing between the normal and the 
defective. The second possibility is that the difference is only 
a quantitative one. It is to the effect that there exists a normal 
curve of distribution of mental abilities corresponding to the 
theoretically normal curve to be obtained from a large mass 
of fine measurements. Notwithstanding the theory of quali- 
tative discrimination underlying its origin the attempt has been 
made by Goddard, Kuhlman, Chotzen and others to fit the 
Binet-Simon series into this conception. Their theory of the 
difference between the normal and the defective is that the 
latter takes more time chronologically to reach a certain point 
of development than does the former. Clinical experience in 
getting developmental histories of defectives goes to show that 
in many phases of development that is the case. Defective chil- 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 83 

dren learn to walk and talk later than normal children. In 
matters of formal education they acquire more slowly. In 
the clinic which has for its task the classification of children for 
educational, penal or other practical social purposes this type 
of data is inadequate to fulfill the demands of the situation. 
Developmental history can not always be obtained with ac- 
curacy; there are many causes of retardation of the develop- 
mental phases of early life the effects of which do not persist 
to a later period; progress in formal education and acquiring 
of information may be interfered with by any one or more 
of several physical and social factors. 

This use of the time factor is only another application of 
the quantitative idea of difference discussed in the first chapter. 
The use of the time factor whether in the sense of marking 
off developmental ranges of difference, or whether applied in 
the rigorous laboratory method to specific tests can make the 
point of distinction between the normal and the defective only 
an arbitrary matter. With the curve of normal distribution 
of quantitatively measurable phases of mental processes before 
us who is to decide this determining point and upon what basis ? 

In order to give a further meaning and value to the quanti- 
tative data obtainable in a clinical examination the writer 
proposes certain qualitative classifications in the discussion to 
follow. 

The quantitative data used to determine the qualitative classi- 
fications to be described below are, for the most part, number 
and types of errors. The classifications are made upon such 
considerations as the relation of error in individual cases to 
the number of errors possible to the test to be evaluated, other 
conditions peculiar to the test itself, and the object of the test 
from the standpoint of the child. 

Some of the reasons for the exclusion of time measure in 
evaluation of results were discussed above. They are inherent 
in the demands oif the clinical situation. The motive to make a 
good time record is unsuited to the practical demands of the 
clinic, because it is the desire there to test for the most part 
such processes as require attentional control in a new situation. 



84 CLARA SCHMITT 

'For some tests such as tapping tests and the Thorndike a test, 
the time measure is an important factor. In such tests there 
is no new discrimination in the perceptual or other mental pro- 
cesses to be made. If other things, such as the avoidance of 
error or the making of a plan for a bit of work, are oif most 
importance, time can not except within large limits be taken 
into consideration. In the writer's proposed classifications the 
only use of the time factor is to mark the point where the 
child's reaction to the test may be classed as failure. 

A further reason for eliminating time measure from the 
evaluation of results is that much time may be wasted by the 
child who is working from the play motive. His attention 
may be dften diverted from consideration of the end of the 
test. If he stops to remark that it is a pretty puzzle, or to ask 
who made it, the amount of time so wasted will depend some- 
what upon the tact of the examiner in again directing his 
attention to the work in hand. This, then, leads to the further 
consideration that one does not know whether one unit of time 
has been of the same value as any other unit in the performance 
of the test. If the child takes some time apparently examining 
the test before him before beginning, or stops to do so at any 
time during the performance of it, one does not know what is 
taking place in his mind. One does not know whether he is 
examining it with reference to the requirements of the test; 
or is occupying his attention with something quite apart from 
the object of the test such as the colors or the grain of the 
wood when doing puzzle tests; or is ,only staring and not 
thinking or planning. In an examination one is sometimes at 
a loss as to how to direct the attention of the child because what 
he is really doing can be often only a matter of conjecture. 

It has been shown in the first chapter that laboratory tests 
suitable to such fine discriminations of measurement as is de- 
manded in rigorous laboratory method correlate more or less 
doubtfully with general intelligence, the matter to be deter- 
mined, or measured. The reason for this is that there exists 
no measure of general intelligence which permits of such fine 
discriminations as are used in laboratory tests. An analogous 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 85 

process in the realm of physics would be the attempt to find a 
proportion between an object measured with a micrometer and 
another measured with a yard stick. The object of the clinic 
for the present should be to find such tests as will present 
suitable situations in which the general intelligence may func- 
tion, rather than to find a correlate or measure in simple 
mental processes. The tests should be of various grades of 
complexity, but analyzable with reference to such standards as 
we possess for judging human social conduct. It is with the 
belief that they correspond to mental processes concerned in 
the social adjustment of the individual, and in the relation of 
the individual to social progress, that the writer proposes the 
following qualitative classifications of reaction to the tests under 
discussion. 

The three classifications chosen are termed, planned reaction, 
trial and error reaction and chance reaction. In the first type 
the subject applies his previous experiences of the kind presented 
to him by the test to the solution of the specific problem before 
him, with a minimum of error. In the second type the situation 
is approached as though entirely new, in which there is little 
conscious application of previous experience to the solution of 
the problem presented, but in which the experiences presented 
by the present problem become the basis for attack upon a 
new problem of similar type. In the third type of reaction 
every new problem is wholly new, and the experiences of early 
attempts with it do not become a basis for conscious modification 
of reaction in further work with it. 

The animal or low type of human intellect arrives at new 
attainments such as the opening of a lock, through a chance 
coordination gained after much trial and error. Every new 
lock must be an entirely new problem. Such an intelligence 
does not generalize upon past experiences in such way as to bring 
about an adaptation of the old response to the changed conditions 
of the old type of problem. 

In the following tables may be noticed certain time correla- 
tions with grade and in one case. Table XXI, with method 
of procedure or type of reaction. Since, however, the time de- 



86 CLARA SCHMITT 

creases with the higher grades for both types of reaction, the 
decrease has no relation to the mental process. It probably 
indicates increase of motor ability with the higher grades. 

General Methods of Procedure in Giving Tests. — The private 
school children to whom the tests were given were told by the 
principal that we had some games with which they might play, 
coming one at a time, and that we wanted to see how well 
they liked them. They were told not to tell their mates about 
the games after having played with them, for it would spoil 
the fun of those who were still to see them. This way of 
putting the matter was very effective, for the children who 
had not yet had the tests would not permit those who had to 
discuss them. An effort was made to send each child back to 
his school room with the feeling that he had had a very good 
time. The other children then came with only pleasant antici- 
pations. The children were given the tests singly in a quiet 
room with which they were familiar. The word quiet is not 
intended to convey the idea that it was noiseless. As a matter 
of fact it was on a street car line and many other noises such 
as the closing of doors, etc., reached it. The noises were such, 
however, as the children were accustomed to hearing and did 
not distract attention. 

The older children who were not satisfied with the reason 
for giving the tests were told that we wanted to see how much 
better older children could play the games than younger ones. 
Very few of the children asked for a reason further than the 
one given them by the principal, that the games were intended 
for their own amusement. In the clinic it has been found that 
this reason generally suffices. In case the real reason is de- 
manded it is generally best to give one that assures the child 
of the examiner's personal friendship toward him. One to the 
effect that we want to see how well he can do these things so 
that we may know what kind of work to get for him or how 
to help him out of his trouble, if coupled with the assurance 
all along that he is doing well, is always satisfactory. 

Test I. Introductory Picture Form Board. — This test, with 
the exception of the sixth grade, was always given first. Its 



Fig. I 





Plate I 

A Picture Form-Board — our Test I 

An example of a test in which form and color perceptions, some apperceptions, 

and methods of trial and success are brought out. 



From Individual Delinquents — Healy 
Courtesy Little, Broivn & Co. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 87 

bright colors and the animal pictures immediately excite interest. 
Its simplicity disarms suspicion that anything unusual or difficult 
will be required. The pleasure of constructing the puzzle leaves 
the child in a very pleasant and anticipatory frame of mind 
for further tests. By giving tests of this character first the 
child's friendliness for, and confidence in the examiner grows 
to such an extent that he is willing to undertake tests of a 
less immediately interesting character. 

The design shows a certain number of pieces cut out on 
the natural lines of some of the objects in the picture, together 
with four other pieces, one of which is irregular in shape, and 
three of which are cut on geometrical lines. Two of these last 
somewhat resemble each other, but are not interchangeable. The 
third is an isosceles triangle divided into two right angle 
triangles. The purpose of this was to provide for a simple 
trial and error procedure, if the make-up of the parent triangle 
was not at once recognized — as it usually is not. 

The puzzle is put before the child, the pieces scattered at 
random on the table, with the remark that here is a pretty 
puzzle which one would like to see how well he can do. With 
the exception of the divided triangle this test presents a one 
to one relationship between the openings and the pieces to be 
placed, that is there is one opening for each piece. The usual 
procedure is to leave the divided triangle until the last, since 
there is no place for either piece alone. The high grade child 
above five years of age makes few errors or none at all in 
placing pieces other than those of the divided triangle. That 
is, he does not attempt to put a piece where it does not belong, 
the head where the legs ought to be, etc. The child of low 
grade intelligence places the pieces by trial and error, trying 
each piece in each opening until he finds the one in which it 
fits. The still lower grade of intelligence persistently tries to 
fit a piece into an opening and finally fails of accomplishing the 
test because his lack of recognition of failure has prevented 
his giving up a misfit attempt in favor of another opening for 
the piece he is trying. The divided triangle, because of the 



88 CLARA SCHMITT 

difference between the numerical relation of the opening and 
the pieces, really constitutes a test within itself. It may be 
placed without any trial and error, in which case the subject 
immediately perceives the relation between the opening and 
the pieces. It may be placed by trial and error in which the 
pieces are turned around and around until the right position 
is hit upon. The most common error of the child in this re- 
peated trial and error is to turn the piece through an arc of 
i8o° or more instead of through 90° which would accomplish 
the task. Because of the diversity between the body of the 
puzzle and the triangular portion these two parts are tabulated 
as two distinct tests. Table XI presents the data obtained from 
the body of the puzzle. 









TABiLE 


XI 












Introductory Puzzle. 


Test 


I. (Body 


f Puzzle) 


















Er 


rors 








r 








3 to 5 




^ 
6 or more 






A 


errors 


I & 2 


errors errors 




errors 


Grade 


Number Time 


r~ 
Numb 


er % 


1 ~^~" 
Numb 


er % 


Number 


% 


1 \ 
Number % 


Kdg. 


27 


i'-4i" 


9 


33 


7 


25 


8 


29 


3 II 


I 


21 


l'-2l" 


16 


7^ 


3 


14 


2 


9 





II 


17 


i'-i6" 


9 


52 


5 


29 


3 


17 





III 


21 


i'- 4" 


10 


47 


7 


33, 


4 


19 





IV 


24 


I'- 3" 


13 


54 


II 


45 











V 


22 


il'-IO" 


12 


54 


9 


40 


I 


4 






The table shows the average time of performance of the 
children of the different grades, and the number and per cent 
of errors which are indicated in the fourth and succeeding 
columns to the left. An error is any wrong attempt to place a 
piece. It is counted an error to take any piece and attempt to 
place it in an opening other than the one in which it fits; if the 
piece is turned about and placed in another wrong opening 
another error is scored; if the attempt is made to place a piece 
in its own opening upside down an error is scored ; if a piece 
is discarded and later tried again in the same wrong opening 
an additional error is scored for the second and each succeed- 
ing wrong attempt. The table shows that the trial and error 
is small after the kindergarten, when 80 per cent or more of 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 89 

each grade perform the puzzle with less than three errors; 
89 per cent of the kindergarten children make less than six 
errors. The most common errors are the attempts to inter- 
change the two heads, the two legs, and the diamond and 
modified diamond. The errors of nornial children are attempts 
to interchange these roughly paired pieces. Defective children 
will attempt such errors as placing a head where a leg should 
be, etc. 

Table XII presents the data obtained from the triangular 
portion of the test. The data are arranged to show the average 
time required to arrange the two pieces in the opening, and 
the type of mental process which the child employed in ac- 
complishing the task. The data have been arranged to show two 
types or methods of work, the trial and error method and the 
planned method. A child was recorded in the trial and error 
column if he tried each piece in more than two positions before 
finding the right one, and in the planned column if he tried 
one or both pieces in less than two positions before finding 
the right one. A more careful grading of the trial and error 
method is not practicable because the pieces are turned quickly 
and often held covered up. 









TABLE XII 












Introductory 


Puzzle, 


Test 


I (Triangl 


le) 














Method 






Failure 


Trial & error 


^ 

Planned 






Average 


J, 














^ 


( 


\ 


/ \ 


Grade 


Numbei 


r time 


Number 


% 


Number 


% 


Number % 


Kdg 


27 


i'-36" 


4 


14 


23 


100 





I 


21 


I '-28" 


I 


4 


15 


76 


5 2Z 


II 


17 


I '-25" 


I 


5 


12 


70 


5 29 


III 


21 


l'-2S" 








12 


57 


9 42 


IV 


24 


54" 








21 


88 


3 II 


V 


22 


2i" 








13 


59 


9 40 



The percentage of trial and error of the above table is that 
of the sum of the trial and error and the failure records. The 
object is to find the percentage of children who do not do the 
test by a method superior to that of trial and error. It is 
probable that those marked failure, if permitted to work in- 
definitely, would accomplish the task. The table shows that 



go CLARA SCHMITT 

from 60 per cent to 100 per cent of the children between the 
kindergarten and the fifth grade have not had sufficient ex- 
perience with such geometrical problems to enable them to do 
this one without trial arid error. Since, then, the problem 
cannot be used as a test of a child's ability to perceive the 
spatial relationship involved without error, it may be used as 
a test of his ability to learn by experience with it. Twenty-six 
of the kindergarten children were asked to do the triangle a 
second time. Those who had failed in five minutes were shown 
how to do it. Of these twenty-six children, twenty did it a 
second time without error, requiring, with one exception, not 
more than twenty seconds; three children did it a second time 
with repeated trial and error, but the third time without error; 
and three did it a second time with error but no repeated error, 
that is no wrong position for each piece was tried more than 
once. These results may be compared with those obtained from 
delinquent children seen at the Juvenile Court Clinic mentioned 
above. 

Of twenty-six children between 7-6 and 8-6 years of age 
seen at the clinic, five because of their reactions to this and 
other tests, were graded feeble-minded. Of these five cases, 
three failed to complete the body of the puzzle because of lack 
of recognition of failure in attempting to place the pieces; 
two others failed to complete the triangle. Among those graded 
normal there were no failures of either part of the puzzle ; four 
of the normal children made six or more errors in doing the 
body of the puzzle, four did the triangle by trial and error. 
Of twenty-,two children between the ages of 8-6 and 9-6 years, 
three were graded feeble-minded. Two of these children ac- 
complished the whole puzzle, with more than six errors for 
the body and the triangle by trial and error; the third failed 
on the triangle. Of the children graded normal, one failed 
to accomplish the puzzle, one made six errors, and two did the 
triangle by trial and error, and one failed to do the triangle.* 

* In the process of evaluating a child's mental condition, in general, failure 
with one test which the child's age might lead one to expect him to accom- 
plish is disregarded if he has uniformly accomplished more complex tests. 
One must take into consideration the fact that clinical conditions can not 



Fig. 2 




STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 91 

Above this age failure in one or both parts of this test always 
accompanies the condition jof feeble-mindedness, but not all 
feeble-minded persons above this age fail in the test. 

Test II. Special Picture Puzzle. This test was given second 
in order to the first four grades. The twelve pieces of the 
puzzle are so cut as to form five rather closely resembling 
pairs and two unpaired pieces. Four of the pairs differ in 
shape and cannot be interchangeably placed. The quadrilateral 
pieces can be interchanged. 

Except for the two unpaired pieces the differences of form 
are not sufficient to serve as a guide in placing the pieces. The 
placing must be accomplished by the matching of the lines and 
colors preserved on the piece with those of the surrounding 
picture. 

In giving the test the form is placed before the child with 
the pieces scattered at random. He is told that "the game" 
with this puzzle is to look so carefully at each piece before at- 
tempting to place it that he will not try to put any piece where 
it does not belong; that is, that he should not try to give any- 
one the wrong head, but give to each one just what belongs 
to him at the very first trial. If the child makes an error in 
attempting the first piece the warning is again repeated with 
the remark that he has just made a mistake and should look 
carefully and not do it again. With young children the author 
has tried to excite greater interest in doing the puzzle care- 
fully by saying that to try to give any boy the wrong head 
hurts him very much and care should be taken not to do that. 
This extra appeal to the imagination, however, while amusing 
the child, does not seem to stimulate him to greater care in 
placing the pieces. Apparently the type of motive for doing 
the puzzle, whether the humanitarian one just referred to or 
the play motive or the desire to please the examiner who has 
asked him to do it, has no effect upon calling into greater 
activity his ability to do it. 

In the performance of this test account is kept of time and 

always be kept uniform with reference to the child's motives, and that the 
child's reactions are not always uniform with reference to his general 
mental level. 



92 CLARA SCHMITT 

errors. Attempts to place a piece in the wrong opening, to 
place one upsidedown in its own or a wrong opening, at- 
tempts to interchange the quadrilateral pieces, are counted as 
errors. 

The puzzle may be done by trial and error in which each 
piece is tried out in several places until the right one is found 
for it. In this case the child does not discover that some 
other distinction than form is necessary to aid him in placing 
the pieces, and his apparent compliance with the direction to 
look carefully at each piece and the opening before attempting 
to place it does not lead him to see the distinctive differences 
of color and matching of pattern which would accomplish the 
task. The mentally low grade child does the test by the trial 
and error method. 

Table XIII shows the data obtained from the first four grades 
and the kindergarten. 











TAiBLE XIII 
















Test 


II. 


Sped 


al Picture 


Puzzle 






















Errors 
























II or 




u 


CU 




o 


I and 2 


3 


to 5 


6 to 


lO 


more 




1-1 


"* ' 


V- 




Vh 








<u 


bo Ji 


(U 




(U 




<u 




<u 




<y 




^ 


rt H 


.Q 




^ 




J3 




^ 




,Q 




a 




a 




a 




a 




a 




a 






> 


p 




3 




Xi 




s 




s 


Grade 


1 


< 


^ 


^ 


% 


^ 


^ 


^ 


:z; 


^ 


^ ^ 


Kdg. 


22 


3'-iS" 








I 


S 


5 


22 


9 


40 


7 31 


I 


21 


2- 8" 


I 


4 


4 


19 


9 


42 


5 


^3 


2 9 


II 


17 


2'-Il" 


3 


17 


4 


^3 


6 


35 


4 


23 





IH 


21 


2'-I7" 


3 


14 


7 


33 


7 


33 


4 


19 





IV 


21 


2'-22" 


7 


33 


lO 


47 


3 


14 


I 


4 






This table shows that at the fourth grade the perceptive 
abilities of these children are such as to lead them to see 
the distinctions necessary for the accomplishment of the test 
with little error. At this grade 80 per cent of the children 
are able to do the test with less than three errors. Of the 
kindergarten children 71 per cent do it with six or more errors, 
an average of more than one error for each of the five pairs. 

Of the fourteen feeble-minded children between eleven and 



Fig. 3 




1 


f^^^SU^^^Mi. 


Wn 


1 


■'■ff/p 


. . , 




', ,,, ', ,„ i:^'..'.i, 














~r — 




Ej 










Plate II 

Construction Test A 

An example of a test which demonstrates planfulness and the powers of 

learning by experience. The illustration shows the test as 

presented, as completed, and two types of error. 



From Individual Delinquents — Healy 
Courtesy Little, Brown & Co. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 93 

thirteen years of age seen at the clinic, one did the test with 
two errors, two with five errors, nine with from six to twenty 
errors, and two were of so low grade as to be unable to 
attempt the test. 

Table XIV shows the results of the test arranged accord- 
ing to age. This table shows that at the age of 9-6 years 75 

TAiBLE XIV 







Test II. 


Special 


Pict 


ure 


Puzzle 


. (By ag 


:e) 














(- 








Errors 
























II or 















I and 2 


3 


to 5 


6 


to 10 


more 






u 


J' 






t- 








^ 




Ih 






(U 


bfi «, 


<u 




<u 




<u 




<u 




CI 






^ 


"i c 


.Q 




^ 




^ 




-a 




rO 






S 


V.5 


6 




E 




E 




E 




E 






5 


> *^ 


P 




n 




P 




p 




^ Q 


Age 




^ 


< 


^ 


^ 


IZ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


12; 


^ 


^ ^ 


5- to 


6-6 


16 


3'- 9" 














2 


12 


7 


43 


7 43 


6-6 to 


7-6 


13 


2'-I7" 


2 


15 


4 


30 


4 


30 


2 


IS 


I 7 


7-6 to 


8-6 


27 


2'-3i" 


3 


II 


3 


II 


10 


37 


9 


33 


2 7 


8-6 to 


9-6 


23 


2'- 16" 


2 


8 


8 


34 


10 


43 


3 


13 





9-6 to 


10-6 


20 


I '-43" 


6 


30 


9 


45 


4 


20 


I 


5 





10-6 to 


1 1-6 


6 


I -18" 


2 


2i2> 


4 


66 













per cent of the children do the test with less than three errors, 
a marked advance over the preceding year when 42 per cent 
make as good a record. 

Test III. Construction Puzde A. This puzzle is made up 
of an outer frame and five pieces, two of which are identical 
in size and shape, which fill up the frame opening when properly 
placed. The test may be accomplished with a minimum of 5 
moves, one for each piece. There are eleven possible errors 
without repetition. In giving the test, records of the number 
of errors and the time for its accomplishment are kept. In the 
final evaluation of results the removal of a piece from a right 
position is counted as error. 

The frame is placed before the child with the pieces scattered 
on the table beside it and he is told that the pieces will exactly 
fill the frame if he finds the right way to put them in. The 
result is counted failure if the task is not accomplished in ten 
minutes. 



94 CLARA SCHMITT 

Table XV shows the results of the test arranged according 
to grade. 

TABLE XV 
Test III. Construction Puzzle A. (By grade) 

Errors 









1— 


















V 
























12 or 








Fail 


ure 







I 


to 5 


6 to 


II 


more 




s^ 


?^ 


Ih 




u 


~~\ 


l-H 




Ui 




u 






<u 


!=« oj 


<u 




<u 




<U 




(U 




a> 






^ 


"3 e 


^ 




^ 




rP 




^ 




^ 






s 


fe.§ 


a 




a 




E 




a 




a 






3 


> -^ 


3 




3 




3 




3 




3 




Grade 


^ 


< 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


Kdg. 


26 


3'-io" 


9 


34 


I 


3 


5 


19 


6 


23 


5 


19 


I 


20 


2'-l8" 


5 


25 


I 


5 


4 


20 


4 


20 


6 


30 


II 


17 


2'- 7" 














7' 


41 


5 


29 


5 


29 


III 


21 


i'-34" 








I 


4 


10 


47 


6 


28 


4 


19 


IV 


24 


54" 








3 


12 


15 


62 


6 


25 








V 


22 


I'- 6" 








I 


4 


15 


67 


I 


4 


5 


22 


VI 


24 


43" 








3 


12 


13 


52 


6 


25 


2 


8 



This table shows that the number of errors decreases until 
in the fourth grade 74 per cent of the children do the test 
with less than half the possible number of errors and may 
be considered as having planned the disposition of the pieces 
of the puzzle. Those in the 6 to 11 error column have made 
more than half the possible number of unrepeated errors and 
may be classed as having done the test by the method of 
trial and error. Those of the 12 error and the failure columns 
have failed to learn from the trial and error of their attempts 
and have repeated one or more errors. When this repetition 
begins in the child's performance the accomplishment of the 
test is then a matter of chance, — that is, the chance that he 
will hit upon the right relationship of the pieces. It is possible 
and probable that at some place in this repeated trial and error, 
learning and planning begin in the case of some children; but 
where they begin in any case can be only a matter of con- 
jecture on the part of the experimenter. 

The data of this table have been rearranged in table XVI 
to show the percentages of planned, trial and error and chance 
methods in the accomplishment of the test. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 

TABLE XVI 
Test III. Construction Puzzle A 
Method 



95 





Number 


Planned 




Trial an 


d Error 


Chance 




Grade 


Number 


% 


1 
Number 


% 


Number 


% 


Kdg. 


26 


6 


23 


6 


23 


14 


53 


I 


20 


5 


25 


4 


20 


II 


55 


IT 


17 


7 


41 


5 


29 


5 


29 


III 


21 


ir 


52 


6 


28 


4 


19 


IV 


24 


18 


75 


6 


25 








V 


22 


16 


73 


I 


4 


5 


22 


V'l 


24 


16 


66 


6 


25 


2 


8 



This table shows the increase of ability to plan the work 
of this test up to the fourth grade where it is highest, 75 
per cent. There is a decrease of the chance method of per- 
formance to the fourth grade where it is the lowest. 

Table XVII shows the same data arranged with reference 
to age and in accordance with the plan of evaluation of table 
XVI. 











TABLE XVII 












Test III. Construction 


Puzzle A. 


(By age) 








Number 






Meth( 


3d 








Planned 


Trial and Error 


Chance 




Age 


Number 


% 


Number 


% 


Number 


% 


5 to 


6-6 


18 


3 


16 


6 


33 


9 


50 


6-6 to 


7-6 


18 


6 


33 


I 


5 


II 


61 


7-6 to 


8-6 


23 


5 


21 


8 


34 


10 


43 


8-6 to 


9-6 


23 


13 


56 


6 


26 


4 


17 


9-6 to 


10-6 


22, 


16 


69 


6 


26 


I 


4 


10-6 to 


ii-t) 


II 


10 


90 


ID 





I 





1 1-6 to 


12-6 


18 


14 


77 


I 


5 


3 


16 


12-6 to 


14-6 


20 


12 


60 


6 


30 


2 


10 



This table shows the increase of the use of the planned 
method until the age of 10-6 where it is highest, 90 per cent. 
The chance method decreases up to 9-6, where it is the lowest. 

Of thirteen feeble-minded delinquent children between the 
ages of 10-6 and 14-6 seen at the clinic, jfive failed to do the 
test in ten minutes, one was of too low grade mentality to 
attempt it, six did it by the chance method with from 10 to 
35 repetitions of error, and one did it by the trial and error 
method. 



96 CLARA SCHMITT 

Since the results show that the test is not suitable for the 
testing of abilities for its performance above those of trial and 
error and chance for children under 8-6 where 82 per cent 
use a method superior to chance, it was given to the kindergarten 
children as a learning test. After the first performance of the 
test, the children were asked to do it again. Those who had 
failed to accomplish it were shown how. This showing con- 
sisted in such suggestions as led the child to place the pieces 
correctly once. Of the twenty-three children who were so 
tested, eleven repeated the test with no error; eight with one 
and two errors; one with three errors; and three by the trial 
and error method. The last mentioned group were asked to 
do the test again. One of them did it with no error and two 
with one error each. 

Test IV. Construction Puzzle B. — This test consists oi eleven 
pieces to be arranged to fit six openings. Three of the pieces 
are of identical shape and size and four others are paired in 
the same way. Two of the openings are the same in shape and 
size. Three of the openings sustain a one to one relationship 
with the pieces which will fill them, thus leaving three openings 
to be filled with eight pieces. In the accomplishment of the 
puzzle only one arrangement of pieces is possible, with the 
exception of the two identical openings which permit of an 
alternate arrangement of their respective pieces. 

In doing the test one may perceive the relationship between 
all the openings and the pieces so perfectly as to accomplish 
the task with no error. In the actual performance of the puzzle 
it is usually accomplished by first placing the pieces which have 
a one to one relationship with their openings and thus reducing 
the task to its simplest form. As some of the pieces when 
put together will fill some of the openings but leave the task 
unaccomplished because there will be pieces and openings which 
do not fit-, there is the possibility of trial and error which has 
a show of possibility of success. In this trial and error the 
child does not take into account in his work all the openings 
and all the pieces, but only the relationship of part of the 
openings and part of the pieces. In this type of reaction to 



Fig. 4 










Plate III 

Construction Test B 

Another test for planfulness and learning by the method of trial and 

success. The illustration shows the test as presented, and 

one example of error in placing the pieces. 



From Individual Delinquents — Healy 
Coui'tesy Little, Brown & Co. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 97 

the test there are sixteen possible errors, — made up by counting 
all the different possible ways of placing all the pieces. In 
addition to these two types of performance there is another 
lower type of reaction in which pieces are placed without refer- 
ence to their spatial relationship to the openings in which they 
are placed ; as for example when a circular piece is put into 
a rectangular opening. This type of reaction if it does not 
fail to accomplish the test in the given time, does so by chance. 
In this type the only ability measured is the subject's recog- 
nition of success and his ability to keep before him the object 
of his work until it is attained. There is, of course, the lower 
type still with whom the test would not be a possible one, since 
the subject could not conceive the object of the task. 

Table XVIII shows the arrangement of the data obtained with 
reference to grade. 

TABLE XVIII 
Test IV- Construction Puzzle "B." (By grade) 

Errors 









r 
















17 


or 




^ 













I 


to 4 


5 


to 8 


9 to 16 


more 


Fail 


ure 




u 


ii, 






i-, 




;-H 




u, 




Vh 




ii 






(U 


t^ ^> 


cu 




<L> 




u 




1) 




(U 




<D 






J2 


a ^ 


Xi 




J3 




J3 




.Q 




^ 




J3 






E 




B 




a 




s 




E 




E 




E 






Jj 


> +^ 


s 




:3 




3 




3 




3 




3 




Grade 


^ 


< 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


12^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


:^ 


^ 


Kdg. 


26 


3'-Si" 


2 


7 


2 


7 


7 


26 


5 


19 


2 


7 


8 


31 


I 


20 


4'-23" 








5 


25 


I 


5 


4 


20 


4 


20 


6 


30 


II 


17 


2'-I5" 








9 


53 


3 


17 


I 


5 


I 


5 


3 


17 


III 


21 


3'-'i3" 


I 


4 


8 


38 


4 


19 


I 


4 


5 


23 


2 


9 


IV 


24 


2'-I0" 


6 


25 


9 


37 


5 


20 


I 


4 


2 


8 


I 


4 


V 


22 


2'- 8" 


3 


13 


6 


27 


6 


27 


3 


13 


4 


18 








VI 


24 


2'- 1 7" 


4 


16 


9 


37 


5 


20 


4 


16 


2 


8 









As was done in the preceding tests, the data of this one have 
been arranged with reference to a qualitative standard. Those 
who made eight errors or less, that is, not more than half of 
the possible number of unrepeated errors are classed as having 
done the test by the planned method ; those who made more 
than half the possible number of errors without repeating any, 
in the above table under the column "9 to 16" are classed as 
having done the test by the method of trial and error; those 



98 



CLARA SCHMITT 



who repeated errors or failed to perform the test in ten minutes 
are classed under the head of Chance. This is under the sup- 
position that those who failed would have accomplished the 
test if given unlimited time. The data so arranged is shown 
in Table XIX. 









TABLE XIX 












Test 


IV. Construction 


Puzzle "B." 


(By 


grade) 








Number 






Method 










Planned 


Trial am 


d Error 


n'I 


Cbance 




Grade 


• Number 


% 


Number 


% 


imber 


% 


Kdg. 


26 


II 


42 


5 


19 




ID 


38 


I 


20 


6 


30 


4 


20 




10 


."^o 


II 


17 


12 


70 


I 


S 




4 


23 


III 


21' 


13 


61 


I' 


4 




7 


33 


IV 


24 


20 


83 


I 


4 




3 


12 


V 


22 


15 


68 


3 


13 




4 


18 


VI 


24 


18 


75 


4 


16 




2 


8 



This table shows that the use of the planned method was 
greatly increased at the second grade and is largest at the 
fourth grade, 83 per cent. 

Table XX presents the same data arranged with reference 
to age. 

TABLE XX 
Test IV. Construction Puzzle "B." (By age) 

Method 



Age 



Planned 
Number Number % 



Trial and Error 



Chance 



Number 



% 



Number 



% 



5 to 6-6 

6-6 to 7-6 

7h6 to 8-6 

8-6 to 9-6 

9-6 to 10-6 

10-6 to II -6 

11-6 to 12-6 

12-6 to 14-6 



18 
18 
23 
23 
23 
II 
18 
20 



7 

7 

12 

IS 
16 

ID 
13 
13 



38 
38 
52 
65 
69 
90 
71 
65 



16 
22 

8 

4 
13 

9 
16 
16 



44 
38 
39 
30 
17 
o 
II 
20 



This table shows the increase of the use of the planned 
method up to 10-6 where it is highest, 90 per cent. The chance 
method decreases up to this point where it is lowest. 

Of nineteen feeble-minded children above the age of nine 
years tried at the clinic after the test came into use there, six 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 99 

were of too low grade to attempt the test, — that is, they could 
not conceive the object of the test and could not keep at work 
at it. Six failed to do it in ten minutes, two did it by the 
method of .chance, two by trial and error, and three by the 
planned method. Of these three, one was 13-6 years of age and 
two were fifteen years of age. 

The test was given to the kindergarten children in two ways. 
Those who failed were shown how to do the puzzle. The 
showing consisted of suggestions for the proper placing of the 
pieces which the child carried out. Each child who had not 
failed was asked to do the puzzle a second time, and those 
who had failed were asked to do it after being shown. Of 
the twenty-four cases, one child required to be shown a second 
time before learning to do the puzzle without error. 

The test was then given as a test of the child's ability to 
readjust a learned content to a changed situation. The puzzle 
board was turned upsidedown and he was asked to do it again. 
In this situation, the pieces which were originally placed at 
the top of the board now had to be placed at the bottom. Of 
the twenty-four kindergarten children so tested, nineteen made 
less than two errors in doing the test in the altered position, 
and five made two errors or more. 

It is characteristic of the feeble-minded child to do the test 
under the altered condition with the same amount, or more, 
of trial and error as in his first performance of the test; and 
sometimes after having once learned the test in one position 
he fails entirely to do it in the other. 

The data for the above tables for this test were made up 
by counting as errors the wrong placing of any piece and 
the removal of a rightly placed piece from its proper opening. 
In some individual cases this method of evaluating results may 
be unjust. A child sometimes, finding that he can go no further, 
removes all the pieces already placed and begins again, though 
some he knows are right and he replaces them immediately. 

The data are again rearranged below, made up by counting 
as errors only wrongly placed pieces and ignoring the rightly 
placed pieces removed for any reason from their proper open- 



100 CLARA SCHMITT 

ings. According to this method the percentaged gradings become 
as follows : 



Grade 


Planned 


Trial and Error 


Chance 


Kdg. 


40% 


18% 


40% 


I 


38 


14 


47 


II 


70 


II 


17 


III 


66 


9 


23 


IV 


87 


4 


8 


V 


77 


9 


12 


VI 


78 


20 






Comparison of the percentages resulting from this method 
of reckoning error with those of Table XIX shows the former 
to be slightly more favorable to a grading above that of the 
chance method. Whether this method affords a more accurate 
judgment of the mental process is doubtful. In many cases the 
removal of a rightly placed piece is a positive error, for instance 
that of the half circle, since there is no other piece to fill the 
opening. 

Test V. Puzde Box. — In the previous tests the child had to 
analyze more or less complicated sets of spatial relationships 
or pattern matching. In this test he analyzes a set of functional 
relationships of a contrivance all of the parts of which are open 
to view, and involve no complex mechanical principles such as 
the lever, or pulley, etc. The test consists of a box which he 
is told he is to find a way of opening. The necessary number 
of steps to accomplish the result is seven. These steps consist 
of the loosening of the three inner rings from their confining 
posts, the removal of the staple at the back, the removal of the 
ring from the hook at the front of the lock, the removal of 
the hook itself from the lock and the raising of the lid. The 
arrangement is such that the steps must be accomplished in a 
certain order, and a tool must be used for the removal of the 
three inner rings. A long hook after the fashion of a shoe 
button hook is provided for this purpose. 

In giving the test the box with the hook on top is placed 
lock side before and the child is told that he may look all over 
the box inside and outside and any which way it occurs to him to 
examine it to see if he can find a way to open it, and that he may 
do anything he thinks will help in opening it or use anything he 



Fig. 5 





Plate IV 

A Puzzle Box — our Test V 

An example of a concrete problem to be reasoned out from perceived 

relationships. Each step to the solution, namely, opening 

the box, is plainly visible. 



From Individual Delinquents — Healy 
Courtesy Little, Brown & Co. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS loi 

thinks will help. No further hint concerning the tool is given 
him, except in case he tries to accomplish step one, the first 
one it is necessary to manipulate, without the tool and leaves 
it to try something else since he can not succeed. He is then 
told that he may use the hook. He is then recorded in the 
classification under tool idea — . The child who is not classified 
under tool idea — sees for himself the need of the tool and uses 
it without suggestion or asks permission to do so. In the 
record of data the time which the child spends in studying the 
box without touching any of the fastenings is recorded, each 
step or attempt, and the time to accomplish the test. Wrong 
attempts are recorded as errors. The data for the time spent 
studying the box before proceeding to work were found to 
have no correlation with anything else. Whether the child spent 
a few seconds or several minutes in such study had no relation 
to his age or to the quality of his performance in doing the 
test after he began. Table XXI shows the data obtained ar- 
ranged with reference to grade. The qualitative classification 
was made as follows : a child was placed in the trial and error 
column if after his manipulation of step one he made any 
other errors before accomplishing the opening of the box. He 
was placed in the planned column if, after the manipulation of 
step one, he made no further errors in opening the box. The 
one exception to this was the attempt to do step five, removing 
the ring from the hook at the lock, after step three. This error 
is permitted for the reason that after step three has been done 
the string holding the ring of step five is somewhat loosened 
and one can only know by trying it whether it is sufficiently 
loose to permit of the removal of the ring from the hook. It 
may also be explained here that error six is an attempt to 
push the hook through the lock with one movement instead of 
making the turn in the lock which is necessary to permit of its 
removal. In this classification the assumption is made that in 
the attempts preliminary to step one, (and no case has been 
seen in which some were not made), the child does or does 
not learn the arrangement of the fastenings and their rela- 
tionship to each other. If his learning has been complete he 



102 CLARA SCHMITT 

can then proceed without further error. If it has not been 
complete other errors are made, and he then can open 
the box only by a trial and error process. The usual procedure 
on the part of the child in this learning process is to take up 
the box and trace the fastenings back from the lock. He ex- 
amines the lock and the ring of step five, follows it back to 
step four, and so on back to step one. He usually tries one 
or all of them before arriving at step one and sometimes does 
not follow the series through the ifirst time but goes back to 
the lock or some other point and tries some of the fastenings 
again. 











TABLE XXI 
















Test 


V. 


Puzzle ! 


Box. 


(By grade) 
















■M-.xT-- J 








Ave 
nun 














lV±CLi 

Trial and 


IIUU 




Tool 


rage 
iber 


Average 




u 


Failed 


error 


Planned 


i( 


lea 


moves 




time 




iH 




TS 


OJ 


1 


^ 




(U 


dj 




OJ 


dj 




OJ 




(U 


c 


dj 


n! I- 




,Q 


ja 




^ 


,Q 




,Q 




c 


c 







s 


S 




E 


s 




a 




CT3 


rt 


c 


-^ h: 




3 


xi 




3 


n 




S 






C 


aJ 


•n <u 


Grade 


^< 


^ 


^ 


^ ^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


E 


h 


E 


H 


*I 


21 


12 


57 


9 lOO 








2 


9 





16 




7'-22," 


II 


17 


2 


II 


14 94 


I 


5 


5 


29 


III 


14 


6'-S2" 


7'-56" 


III 


21 


3 


12 


i6 90 


2 


9 


9 


42 


9 


15 


3'- 5" 


6'- 2" 


IV 


24 


2 


8 


15 70 


7 


29 


12 


50 


9 


14 


S'-33" 


6'-i6" 


V 


22 


O 





8 z6 


14 


63 


3 


13 


9 


13 


2'-52" 


4'-45" 


VI 


23 





o 


7 30 


16 


69 








9 


12 


2'-52" 


3'-S4" 



* A box similar to the one used here was tried with ten first grade 
children in another school. All of them failed to open it in 10 minutes. 

Table XXI shows that for the children under the fifth grade 
from 70 to 100 per cent are able to do the test by a method 
not superior to that of trial and error. That the number of 
those who lack the tool idea in their planning of the test in- 
creases up to the fifth grade is due to the fact that it is taken 
account of only for those who succeeded in doing the test. In 
the fourth grade where the amount of failure is the smallest 
the lack of tool idea is greatest. The lack of the tool idea is 
generally associated with the trial and error method of doing 
the test; of the 31 children who lacked the tool idea, 28 did 
the test by the trial and error method; the three who did it by 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 103 

the planned method belonged to the fourth and fifth grades. 
The last two columns of the table show the time correlation 
with the two methods of doing the test. The time decreases 
slightly as the grade progresses and for each grade the time 
for doing the test by the planned method averages less than the 
time for the trial and error method. This time correlation 
with grade is probably due to increase of motor ability. The 
two columns of the table preceding the last two show the 
correlation of number of moves with the two methods of work. 
The number of moves in each case is the number of errors 
plus seven, the number of correct moves necessary. After the 
second grade the average number of preliminary errors, found 
in subtracting seven from the average number of moves in 
each column, is two, and does not decrease. The number of 
moves decreases little for those who did the test by trial and 
error. 

Table XXII shows the same data arranged with reference 
to age. 

TABLE XXII 

Test V. Puzzle Box. (By age) 

Method 



Average 
Trial and number Average 

Failed error Planned moves time 



Age 



s 


E 




S 




S 




^ 

cd t.4 


c 
c 





c 
a 


3 


3 




3 




D 




•C '" 


a 


•- <i, 


zi 


^ 


:^ 


^ 


:z 


^ 


^ 


^ 


H 


K 


H 


Clh 


8 


4 


50 


4 


100 








17 




7'-39" 




27 


7 


26 


20 


100 








14 




7'-46" 




23 


3 


12 


17 


87 


3 


12 


14 


9 


6'-SS" 


4'-2l' 


23 


2 


8 


15 


7?, 


6 


26 


14 


10 


5'-33" 


4'-43' 


II 








3 


27 


8 


72 


13 


9 


5'- 3" 


3'-43' 


18 








6 


Zi 


12 


66 


13 


9 


4'-3o" 


2'-38' 


19 








8 


42 


II 


57 


10 


9 


3'-2S" 


2'-55' 



6-6 to 7-6 

7-6 to 8-6 

8-6 to 9-6 

9-6 to 10-6 

10-6 to I 1-6 

II -6 to 12-6 

12-6 to 14-6 

This table shows that the use of the planned method for 
this test increases greatly at the age of 10-6 where it is the 
highest, y2 per cent. 



104 CLARA SCHMITT 

Of twenty-six children between the ages of 10-6 and 17-6, 
judged at the clinic to be feeble-minded, and for whom a 
record for this test was recorded, eleven were of too low grade 
to attempt the test, ten failed in fifteen minutes to accomplish 
it and five did it by trial and error. 

Test IX. Cross Line A. — This and the two following tests 
constitute a series of increasing difficulty, with the climax at 
the reasoning step of the third oi the series, the code test. In 
this test the child uses representative material to accomplish the 
desired result. In the previous tests the child's work is con- 
tinually checked up by the sense stimulus of the concrete material 
with which he works. This and the two following tests test 
his ability to analyse his memory of the figure which has just 
been drawn before him. 



Fig. 6 




AV > < 

The cross lines represented in the above figure are drawn 
before the child and he is told that in the space with the lines 
going upward and opening upward an I is placed; in the space 
opening out to one side a 2 is placed; in the space with its 
lines going downward a 3 is placed, and in the space opening 
out to the other side a 4 is placed. While he is being told 
this each space is outlined with the pencil and the number 
is written in. Then one of the elements of the figure is drawn 
at one side, and he is asked to tell which one of the spaces 
it is like. If he answers correctly, his reason for his answer 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 105 

is asked. If he answers to the effect that its Hnes point Hke 
or open up Hke the one he has named, one may assume that 
he understands the problem, and go on with the next step in 
the test. If he answers wrongly, the figure is discussed further 
with him until he understands the nature of the analysis to 
be made. 

There are cases of such low mentality as to be unable to 
comprehend the problem. When the child's comprehension of 
the problem is sure, the figure which has been drawn for him 
is covered, with the remark that he may now see if he can 
do the same thing with it covered up. 

The elements are then drawn for him one by one and he is 
asked to number them. The question asked him is, zvliich space 
is this one like? He is provided with a pencil to place the 
appropriate number. If he begins by making errors he can 
sometimes be led to find a method of recall for himself by 
the suggestion that he think of the covered up figure and see 
if he can remember what kind of space one is in, and two, and 
three and so on. If, after the four spaces are drawn and num- 
bered there are errors, he is asked to draw the figure himself. 
In case of error one wishes to know if he has remembered the 
figure and its scheme of numbering incorrectly, but has analyzed 
correctly according to his memory of it, or if he has remembered 
it correctly and analyzed it incorrectly. If he has analyzed it 
correctly as he has remembered it he is placed in the list of 
those who have succeeded at the first attempt, since it is his 
ability to do the analysis correctly that is to be tested. If 
he has not analyzed correctly but has remembered correctly, he 
is told that he did not number the spaces correctly at first and 
that he may try again. If he has neither analyzed nor re- 
membered correctly he is permitted to look at the original 
figure and then is asked to draw it again, and is given as many 
trials as is necessary to learn to draw the figure and number 
it correctly from memory. The writer has found no child who 
has been able to comprehend the problem of the test who could 
not learn to draw and number the figure correctly with as 
much as three such trials. If, after the second attempt at 



io6 



CLARA SCHMITT 



analysis from memory, he still iails to number all the elements 
correctly he is again asked to draw the figure and the process 
is repeated as before. He is given four such trials at the analysis 
before being classed as failure. Table XXIII shows the data 
obtained with this test arranged with reference to grade. It 
cannot be given to kindergarten children because of their 
unfamiliarity with written numerals. 

TAB>LE XXIII 
Test IX. Cross Line Test A. (By Grade) 
Failure Succeeded 







Fourth 


First 


Second 


Thir 


d 


Fourth 






trial 


trial 


trial 




tria 




trial 




Ui 


u 




t:^ 




Vh 


~^ 


iH 




Sh 




(U 


«j 




m 




OJ 




tu 




o 




.n 


^ 




^ 




Xi 




^ 




.a 




S 


a 




a 




a 




a 




a 




=i 


s 




3 




Ti 




3 




3 


Grade 


12; 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


% 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ ^ 


I 


20 


2 


lO 


12 


6o 


3 


15 


3 


15 


O 


II 


17 


2 


II 


14 


83 


I 


5 


o 





O 


III 


21 





o 


19 


go 


I' 


4 


I 


4 


o o 


IV 


25 





o 


21 


84 


I 


4 


I- 


4 


2 8 


V 


22 





o 


22 


lOO 


o 


o 





o 


o 


VI 


24 


O 


o 


24 


100 


o 








o 


o o 



The table shows that the percentage of children between the 
first and the sixth grades who fail to do the test is negligible, 
and that after the first grade the percentage who need more 

Fro, 7 i 

(2 

i- 1 g 



/ 



3| ^ I f 

n L n 1 J 

c r u D n 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



107 



than a first trial is negligible. Since the results ior the grades 
are so uniform an age table is omitted. 

Test X, Croiss Line Test B. — The procedure for this test 
is, so far as its own circumstances permit, like that of the 
preceding test. The figure is constructed before the child, and 
the spaces in which i, 2, and 3 are placed are outlined while 
being numbered. He is then given four trials, proceeding as 
prescribed in the preceding test. The results are evaluated as 
in the preceding test. 

Table XXIV shows the data of this test arranged with refer- 
ence to grade. 

TABLE XXIV 
Test X. Cross Line Test B 
Failure Succeeded 







Fourth 


First 


Second 


Third 


Fourth 






trial 


trial 


trial 


trial 


trial 




fe 


«r< 




t< 


>H 




y 




t< 




<u 




i? 


<y 




<u 




<u 




^ 


J2 




^ 


,Q 




^ 




^ 




S 


s 




s 






B 




B 




s 


3 




s 


j3 




3 




:s 


Grade 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ ^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ ^ 


I 


20 


6 


30 


8 40 


3 


15 


2 


10 


I 5 


II 


17 


2 


III 


II 64 


I 


5 


2 


II 


I 5 


III 


21 


I 


4 


17 80 


3 


14 











IV 


25 








20 80 


I 


4 


2 


8 


2 8 


V 


22 








18 81 


3 


13 


I 


4 





VI 


24 








24 100 


















This table shows that after the first grade the percentage 
of failure is negligible, and that after the third grade there is 
no failure in doing the test. After the second grade from 80 
per cent to 100 per cent are able to do the test at the first trial. 
Before the second grade the percentage of children who need 
more than a second trial is negligible. 

The writer's further experience with this and the preceding 
cross line test has led to the opinion that two trials constitute 
a sufficient test of the child's ability to perform this type of 
mental process. The drawing of the figure by the child after 
the first unsuccessful attempt shows whether the failure is due 
to his having forgotten the figure and its number arrangement. 



io8 CLARA SCHMITT 

It gives him in an added experience, tlie kinaesthetic, whatever 
it may be worth in controlling his imagery for the second trial. 
The practice effect which more repetition may have upon the 
result is eliminated with the fewer trials. 

Test XI. Code Test. — To this test has been added a step 
which was not involved in the test as described by Healy and 
Fernald. This added step requires the subject to use his ex- 
perience with the material of the two preceding tests in a new 
way. It is a test in reasoning which controls the material 
which the child uses for the new product and which is not 
the result of previous learning as is the case with many other 
reasoning tests in use. 

Bonsel (21 ) used in testing the reasoning ability of children (i ) 
arithmetical problems : // three-quarters of a gallon of oil costs 
p cents what will 7 gallons cost? What number subtracted 12 
times from jo will leave a remainder of 6? (2) The com- 
pleting of sentences to agree with the fact implied in the sen- 
tence : — always comes in the last week of December. The flesh 
of cattle used for food is called — . (3) The selection of alter- 
nate statements to agree with the fact implied in the statement : 

lofiQ^er 
Days are , in summer than in winter. Men are usually 

shorter -^ 

, than women. (4) Opposites: day, asleep. (5) Selec- 
tive judgment, in which a number of reasons are given to show 
why New York has become a greater city than Boston; why 
oak is superior to pine for the making of furniture, etc., and 
the child selects those which are in his judgment the most 
adequate. (6) Literary interpretations : This little rill, that from 
the springs of yonder grove its current brings, etc. All of these 
tests involve previous instruction, and it is possible that they 
may test nothing more than the thoroughness of the child's 
assimilation of such instruction. It is also possible and even 
probable that one's ability to learn in this way the reasoning 
processes taught by others is positively correlated with his own 
ability to reason, and thus a measure of the former becomes 
an indirect measure of the latter. None of the Bonser tests, 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



109 



however, control the material or the process which is used in 
the act of reasoning. In doing the tests the child may never 
have reasoned at all, but have relied only upon information 
previously acquired and used. Nothing else could be the case 
with tests two, three, four and five. 

The procedure for Test XI must necessarily be adapted to 
the interests and temperament of the child to whom it is given. 
Only general directions for giving it can be suggested. The 
procedure adopted by the writer is as follows : 

One says to the child, "You know that in war time, when 
two armies are fighting each other, the generals send out spies 
to find out the secrets of the enemy's army, and sometimes 
the spy must write what he has found in a secret message to 
his general. When he writes a secret message, of course, he 
cannot write it in the way in which we ordinarily write a letter 
because it might fall into the hands of the enemy and betray 
him. He must have a secret way of writing so that only the 
general and himself will be able to read the message. Now, 
I will show you something from which we can get a kind of 
secret writing. The code is here constructed before him while 
he eives attention. 



Fig. 8 



<l 


d 


W 


(r 


z 


k 


C 


i 


4I 



J. 



< 



rr\ 



rv 



h 



t. 



% 







EArn3 T) A 



no CLARA SCHMITT 

When the four figures are constructed in which the letters 
of the alphabet must be placed, the child is asked to repeat 
the alphabet while they are being put in the spaces. This insures 
his attention to the rather long process in hand, and also shows 
whether he knows the alphabet serially and hence might be 
expected to do the second part of the test. Some children do 
not know the alphabet in its correct serial order. 

After the construction has been completed, then he is asked, 
"Now, what could one get from, this to use instead of the 
writing letters of the alphabet for his message? If, for in- 
stance, he were going to write a word that began with A, 
what could he use instead of A, and instead of B, or C or 
any other letter he might need to use in writing his message?" 

The children frequently make suggestions which have no 
relation to the construction before them. They will say he 
may use numbers instead of letters, or they offer the Morse 
code, or some similar scheme with which they are already 
familiar. After each wrong suggestion it is pointed out to them 
that their scheme has nothing to do with the one before them, 
and could not be derived from it, which they, of course, readily 
admit. The writer permits two such suggestions, giving them 
an opportunity to make a third before classing the child among 
the failures for the reasoning step of the test. Those who 
succeed in seeing the correct process for the code writing are 
classed in the column, "Idea -|-" in Table XXV below. Those 
who fail through having made only wrong suggestions, or hav- 
ing made none at all, are placed in the column, "Idea — ." Those 
who have no suggestions to make are allowed to think about it, 
and urged to think about it until they themselves declare that 
they can see no way of getting the secret alphabet from the 
scheme before them. Those who fail are then shown that each 
letter may be represented by the space in which it stands, 
and are asked to write the symbol which would stand for G, 
the one which would stand for P, the one which would stand 
for V, and the one for Z in order to bring out the idea of 
the relation of the dot to the scheme, and also for the purpose 
of giving a slight practice. Those who have succeeded are 
also given this same practice. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS in 

The figure is then covered, and the child is asked to write 
the message, "Come quickly," previously written on the page 
before him. He is told to take as much time as is necessary 
to enable him. to write it without errors. 

Table XXV shows the data obtained from this test arranged 
accordino- to o-rade. 







TABLE XXV 












Test XI. 


Cod 


e Test 












Idea 


+ 


Idea 


— 


Idea? 

'Number 


Average 
number 

errors 


Grade 


Number 


Number 


"% 


Number 


"% 


II 


i6 


3 


i8 


13 


81 




8 


III 


21 


10 


44 


9 


42 


2 


7 


IV 


25 


15 


6o 


9 


36 


I 


4 


V 


22 


15 


68 


6 


26 


I 


2 


VI 


24 


12 


50 


10 


40 


2 


3 



This table shows that after the third grade more than 50 
per cent of the children succeeded in doing the reasoning step 
of the test. In the column "Idea?" was placed those children 
who had seen this code previously. After the third g-rade 
they are able to attend to this rather long and complex process 
of analysis of mental imagery to such an extent as to average 
not more than four errors or 36 per cent out of the possible 
eleven. 

The second grade showed itself almost wholly unable to do 
the reasoning step of the test, and was rather uninterested in 
the test itself. The necessity for a secret means of communica- 
tion is quite outside the range of experience of these children, 
since for them writing itself has not yet wholly ceased to be 
a mysterious process. 

Of thirty-two children between the ages of 8-6 and 17-6, 
classified as feeble-minded at the clinic, twelve were of too 
low grade mentally to undertake any of the three above de- 
scribed tests. Twelve failed in Tests IX and X. With Test 
IX, four succeeded at the first trial, two succeeded at the second 
trial, one succeeded at the third trial and one succeeded at the 
fourth trial. Among those who succeeded with Test IX two 
succeeded at the second trial with Test X. 

The Code Test was not attempted with any of these children 



112 CLARA SCHMITT 

because of their difficulty with the two tests which necessarily 
precede it. 

Test XV. Association of verbal opposites. — The list of words 
used for this test is as follows : 



Good 


Big 


Happy 


Sick 


Empty 


Outside 


Loud 


Cheap 


Glad 


Many 


Quick 


Black 


Dead 


Thin 


Above 


Tall 


Light 


Rich 


War 


Friend 



The child is given some trial practice with as many words 
outside of this list as is necessary to show that he has gained 
the correct idea of what is desired of him in this test. He 
is asked to say the word which means just the opposite of 
the word which will be pronounced to him, as quickly as he 
can think of it. The time is recorded with a stop watch. With 
this test, as with many others, the absolute time of response is, 
within rather large limits, of less importance than the character 
of the response. The data of the test comprises three things : 
The reaction time, the errors made in response, and the fail- 
ures. An error is a reaction which is not in idea an antonym 
of the stimulus word. Among defective individuals it is very 
common to find a lack of control of the associations which 
may be aroused by any stimulus word. The normal individual 
will repress the wrong associations and give only the one which 
is desired. The defective individual instead of giving an 
antonym will give a synonym, or anything else which may come 
immediately to his mind as an association with the stimulus 
word. The defective child often, too, will embody his reaction 
word, whether correct or not, in an entire sentence. The nor- 
mal child inhibits all words but the one which is desired. In 
recording the data any such response which was not in its 
meaning an antonym of the stimulus word, was recorded as 
error. Care was taken, however, in each case, if the reaction 
word was not of the same part of speech as the stimulus word 
or, if it were not the classical antonym of the stimulus word, 
to determine whether in the child's mind it was an antonym. 
This is especially desirable in testing children from homes where 
a foreign language is spoken, or from parochial schools. For 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 113 

instance, the classical antonym for empty is full; children fre- 
quently respond with the word filled; the classical antonym for 
above is belozv; a frequent response is down; the classical 
antonym for sick is well; a frequent response from children is 
better. Slang words are always recorded as correct. For in- 
stance, good gets the frequent response bum. One might go 
on to enumerate many other instances in which the child's 
mental action was controlled in the desired way, but in which 
response was modified by educational experience. 

A failure is a lack of response of any sort within ten seconds 
after the pronunciation of the stimulus word. With failure 
it is desirable to know what is the reason for the failure, — 
whether it is lack of knowledge, or whether the child could 
not bring about the right association. To determine this, ques- 
tions may be asked. For instance, if he fails to respond at 
all to the word loud, one may ask him, "If the noise is not loud 
what kind of a noise is it?" and the question may be put in 
various ways to bring about in his own mind the correct asso- 
ciation. If in this way one elicits the correct response, then 
he is recorded as failure because of slow response. If the 
correct response cannot be elicited, he is then recorded as failure 
from lack of knowledge. 

Table XXVI shows the data obtained from this test arranged 
according to grade. The failures were recorded as such only 
if they were failures because of slow response, and not because 
of lack of knowledge. The most common failures for lack of 
knowledge were to the stimulus words war and friend. 
Younger children have not had sufficient experience in reading 
or conversation to know the opposite of war. The response to 
the stimulus word friend is frequently a word indicating a rela- 
tive or member of the family, showing that in the child's mind 
there are two classes of persons with whom he has personal 
relationship, those belonging to the family and those outside 
of the family who are friends. 



114 



CLARA SCHMITT 

Table XXVI 
Test XV. Opposites Test. (By giade) 

Errors Failures 









r 












5 


or 














5 or 













I 


& 2 


3 


& 4 


more 





I & 2 


3 ' 


& 4 


more 




u. 


(L) 


;-i 




c 




V- 




Vh 




1- 




I- 




13 




ui 




OJ 


'^'S ,!> 


a; 




<u 




OJ 




OJ 




OJ 




<u 









<u 


(U 


rQ 


rt Ji 


J^ 




^ 




,c 




tJ2 




^ 




XI 




J3 




^ 


'a 


a 




s 




E 




E 




E 




E 




E 




E 






4-> 


s 


> -^^ 


3 




P 




p 




P 




X^ 




^ 




3 




p 


O 


^ 


< 


IZ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


% 


^ 


^ 


^ 


:? 


^ 


:§ ^ 


I 


20 


2V5 


2 


10 


12 


60 


4 


25 


I 


5 


3 


IS 


10' 


50 


6 


30 


I S 


II 


16 


2V5 


8 


SO 


6 


Z7' 


II 


6 


ii 


6 


6 


Z7 


6 


37 


3 


18 


I 6 


III 


21 


2Y5 


6 


28 


12 


57 


3 


14 








3 


14 


II 


52 


4 


19 


3 14 


IV 


23 


2 


14 


61 


8 


34 


I 


4 








II 


47 


9 


39 


2 


8 


I 4 


V 


22 


■lYs 


17 


77 


4 


17 


I 


4 








IS 


67 


7 


31 











VI 


24 


lYs 


211 


87 


3 


I'2 














13 


54 


10 


41 


I 


4 






The table shows that, beginning with the second grade, the 
percentage of children who make more than two errors become 
negligible; beginning with the fourth grade, from 61 to 87 
per cent make no errors. On the failure side we see that, 
beginning with the fourth grade the percentage of those who 
make more than two failures becomes negligible, and at the 
fifth grade more than fifty per cent of the children make no 
failures. 

Table XXVII shows the same data arranged with reference 
to age. The same statement with reference to errors as above 





















TABLE XXVII 
































Test XV. 


Opp 


osite 


Test. 


(By 


■ ag 


:e) 


























r 






Errors 








r 




Failures 




















5 


or 












S 


or 














c 


i 


I 


& 2 


3 &4 


more 





I & 2 


3 


& 4 


more 










u 


en 
u 


^H 




ii 






^ 


I- 




ll 








ti 




;-( 












<u 


bo - 


dj 




<L> 




!U 




<u 




tu 




OJ 




OJ 




<U 












,n 


rt OJ 


J3 




^ 




.e 




X 








^ 




^ 




^ 












E 


fe E 


E 




g 




g 




g 




g 




E 




E 




1 












P 


>'-M 


^s 




n 




P 




^ 




3 




3 




3 




P 




Age 








'Z 


< 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


g 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


12; 


^ 


6-6 


to 


7- 


-6 


8 


2y5 








5 


62 


3 


37 














~6~ 


75 


I 


12 


I 


12 


7-6 


to 


8-6 


24 


2y5 


9 


37 


II 


45 


2 


8 


2 


8 


6 


25 


II 


45 


6 


25 


I 


4 


8-6 


to 


9 


-6 


23 


2 


9 


39 


III 


47 


3' 


le 








9 


39 


9 


39 


3 


13 


2 


8 


9-6 


to 


10 


-6 


23 


iVs 


IS 


6S 


8 


34 














9 


39 


II 


47 


2 


8 


I 


4 


10-6 


•to 


II- 


-6 


II 


iVs 


6 


54 


4 


36 


I 


9 








4 


36 


5 


45 


I 


9 


I 


9 


11-6 


to 


12- 


-6 


17 


iVs 


13 


7(> 


3 


17 


I 


5 








lai 


6r 


6 


35 














12-6 


to 


14- 


-6 


20 


vYs 


17 


85 


3 


13 














II 


55 


8 


40 


I 


5 









STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 115 

may be deduced from this table beginning with the age 8-6, 
and for failures beginning with the age 9-6. At 11-6 more 
than 76 per cent of the children make no errors and 61 per 
cent no failures. 

Of thirty feeble-minded children between the ages of 9-6 
and 17-6 seen at the clinic, twenty-one were unable to under- 
stand the import of the test and so control their associations 
as to make a record for it; the defective child fails to inhibit 
the wrong association, responds with a whole sentence, goes off 
on a tangent of discussion with each stimulus word, or re- 
sponds with absolute silence. Of the nine remaining, four 
made two errors or less, two made either three and four errors, 
and three made five or more errors. Five made two failures 
or less, one made three failures, and three made five or more 
failures. 

Text XII, Memory from Visual Verbal Presentation. — A 

typewritten sheet like the ordinary printed page, containing the 

following selection is placed before the child : 

If a man finds that the house is on fire, he should first look to see if it is 
a large fire. If it is a small one, he should quickly pour water on it or smother 
it. But if it is large, he should run to the fire alarm box, calling out fire 
to the other people in the house. Then he should go back and help old or 
sick people or little children to escape from the burning building. When all 
the pe.ople are out, if there is time he may save valuable things such as money 
or jewelry. Then when the fire engine comes, he may keep the crowds or 
curious people out of the way so that the firemen may work more easily. 

The child is told that he may read this selection to himself 

once and then hand it to the experimenter and tell what he has 

read ; just as nearly like that which he read as he can remember ; 

but that if he can not remember it precisely he should not be 

worried about it but give it as best he can. The request to 

hand it back as soon as he has finished reading, is to let the 

experimenter know that he has finished, and to discourage his 

attempting to read it a second time, as was found sometimes 

to be the case when this order was not given. He is also told 

that if there are any words which he does not know, if he 

will merely point to them they will be pronounced for him. 

It was found with the children of this school that those of the 

second grade and above found very few words which they 

could not pronounce. 



ii6 CLARA SCHMITT 

The experimenter uses for permanent record a printed sheet 

with space sufficiently wide so that changes in the text as 

rendered by the child may be written in, or words or phrases 

omitted in his rendering may be crossed out. 

Permanemt Record Sheet of Test XII 
If a man finds that the house is on fire 
he should look to see if it is a large fire 
if it is a small one 
he should pour water on it 
or smother it 
but if it is large 

he should run to the fire alarm box 
calling out fire 

to the other people in the house 
then he should go back 
and help old or sick people 
and little children 
to escape from the burning building 
when all the people are out 
if there is time 
he may save valuable things 
such as money or jewelry 
then when the fire engine comes 
, he may help to keep the crowds of curious people out of the way 
so that the firemen may work more easily. 

Table XXVIII shows the data, arranged according to grade, 
obtained from this test. The data are the number of items 
the child remembers. What is considered an item is indicated 
by the length of line in the record sheet above, each line con- 
stituting one item of the passage. A judgment is made in 
each case as to whether the child was verbally accurate, approxi- 
mately verbally accurate, or made no attempt to be verbally 
accurate. The correctness of the sequence of items is also 
noted. He is noted in the column. Sequence correct if there 
is not more than one detail misplaced in the selection. He is 
put down in the column. Sequence incorrect if more than one 
detail is misplaced in the selection. Following is an example 
of an approximately accurate verbal reproduction. It may be 
remarked here that there were none absolutely accurate. 

"If a man finds his house is on fire, he must first look to 
see if it is a large fire. If it is a small fire, he should pour 
water on it to smother it; but if it is large, he should run to 
the fire alarm box and call out Tire!' to the people. Then 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 117 

he must go to help old or sick people out from the fire. Then, 
if there is time, he may bring out jewelry. Then when the 
fire engine comes he may help to keep back the crowds of curi- 
ous people." 

Following is another case, which was put in the column No 
attempt at Verbal Accuracy: 

"If a house should catch on fire, and the man should see 
it, he should look to see if it is a large fire. If it is a small 
fire, he should pour water on it or smother it; but if he finds 
it is large, he should run as fast as he could to the fire alarm 
box and ring for the firemen. Before the firemen come, if the 
fire isn't very bad he first saves the sick who could not get out. 
Next, get the children out, and when the firemen come keep 
the crowds back so that the firemen can work." 

Following is another example of a reproduction placed in 
the column No Attempt at Verbal Accuracy. It is not so in- 
accurate as the preceding one. 

"If a man sees a fire, he must first look to see if it was a 
big one or a small one. If it is a small one, he should throw 
water on it; but if it is a big one, he should run to the fire 
alarm box and call up the fire engine. Then he should go 
back and see if he can do anything for sick or helpless people. 
After all the people are taken care of he should save money 

TABLE XXVIII 

Test XII. Memory from Visual Verbal Presentation 

Details Remembered Accuracy Sequence 



19 14 Approx- No at- Incor- 

to IS or less imate tempt Correct rect 





^ 


^ 




^ 




^ 




^ 




^ 




^ 




rS 






G 


g 




a 




g 




c 




s 




g 




g 






3 


13 




3 




3 




3 




3 




3 




3 




Grade 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


II 


17 


I 


5 


7 


41 


9 


52 


10 


58 


7 


41 


16 


94 


I 


5 


III 


21 


I 


4 


12 


57 


8 


38 


19 


90 


2 


9 


19 


90 


2 


9 


IV 


24 








15 


(>2 


9 


Zl 


23 


95 


I 


4 


n 


95 


I 


4 


V 


22 


3 


13 


16 


72 


3 


13 


14 


63 


8 


36 


19 


86 


3 


13 


VI 


24 


I 


4 


15 


62 


8 


Z2, 


22 


91 


2 


8 


22 


91 


2 


8 



ii8 CLARA SCHMITT 

and valuable things. Then when the fire engine comes, he 
may help to keep the curious people away from the fire, so 
that the firemen may work more easily." 

The data of Table XXVII show that beginning with the 
third grade more than 6i per cent of the children are able 
to recall not less than fifteen items of the twenty they have read. 
These data are in striking contrast with those which Binet 
obtained with his visual verbal memory test of the 1908 series. 
He found that two items constitute the normal for eight-year- 
old children. The data which Goddard (15) derived from the 
same test led him to conclude that it was too difficult for eight- 
year-old children. The material used for the Binet test was 
as follows : 

New York, September 5th. A fire last night burned three 
houses in Water Street. It took some time to put it out. The 
loss was fifty thousand dollars, and seventeen families lost their 
homes. In saving a girl who was asleep in bed, a fireman 
was burned on the hand. 

The difficulty with the Binet test' probably lay in the un- 
familiarity of much of its material. In such case the child's 
attention is often so much engaged with the matter which is 
unfamiliar to him that he fails to organize that part which is 
familiar to him, and so presents the appearance of failure when 
such is not really the case. The newspaper type of beginning 
of the paragraph could only confuse a non-newspaper reading 
child; the unfamiliar street name, and the unfamiliar quantity, 
fifty thousand, followed by another number in enumerating the 
loss, may detract attention and prevent an organization of the 
story into a complete whole. 

The table shows that all the children were approximately 
accurate in their reproduction of the selection read, and that 
the number of children who reproduced the selection with errors 
in the sequence of items is negligible throughout, with the excep- 
tion in each case of the fifth grade. This grade presents a 
rather large percentage of children who make no attempt at 
verbal accuracy and who made errors in the sequence. 

Test XIII. Memory from Auditory Verbal Presentation. The 
following passage is read to the child four times. He is told 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 119 

before the reading that he must hsten very carefully and then re- 
peat the story as nearly as he can as it was given to him, but 
that if he cannot remember it precisely he should give it as 
well as possible. 

If a sailor on the ocean is shipwrecked in a wild country, he must first 
look for water to drink; then he must find a place to sleep, where wild 
animals can't get at him; and after that he can take time to look for food, 
but he must be careful not to eat poisonous berries or fruit. Next, he had 
better hunt for other people on the land, and put up a flag to stop ships which 
may be going by. 

Permanent Record Sheet for Test XIII 
If a sailor 

on the ocean 

is shipwrecked 

in a wild country 

he must first look for water to drink 

then he must find a place to sleep 

where wild animals won't get at him 

and after that he can take time to look for food 

but he must be careful not to eat poisonous berries or fruit 

next he had better hunt for other people on the land 

and put up a flag 

to stop ships which may be going by. 

The same data are kept for this passage as for the one given 
above. Following is an example of a passage classed as No 
Attempt at Verbal Accuracy: 

"If a sailor is shipwrecked, he has to be careful to see that 
he has water, then to see that he sleeps where wild animals 
won't get at him, and then he has to look for food, and be 
careful not to eat poisonous berries or such things, and then 
he has to look for other people, and put up a flag to stop ships 
going by." 

The following is an example of a reproduction placed in the 
approximately verbally accurate column : 

"If a sailor on the ocean is shipwrecked in a savage land, 
he must first look for water. Next, he must find a place to 
sleep where wild animals won't get at him. Then he may 
look for food, but be careful that he does not eat poisonous 
berries or fruit. Next, he must look around for other people 
on the land, and put up a flag to stop ships going by." 

Table XXIX shows the data obtained from this test : 



CLARA SCHMITT 

TABLE XXIX 
Test XIII. Memory from Auditory Verbal Presentation 

Details iRemembered Accuracy Sequence 











11 




8 


App 


rox- 


No 


i at- 






Incor- 








12 


to 


9 


or 


less 


imate 


tempt 


Correct 


rect 




t) 


^ 




ir< 




t- 




Vt- 




;-. 








f ' — \ 

t4 




<u 






<u 




(U 




OJ 









(U 




(U 


.1 


,Q 


1 




,g 




g 








g 












^ 


^ 




n 




^ 




:i 




^j 










Grade 


^ 


:^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


g 


^ 


1 


^ 


1 ^ 


I 


13 


I 


7 


10 


77 


2 


15 


5 


38 


8 


61 


3 


23 


10 77 


II 


17 


2 


12 


13 


76 


2 


12 


15 


88 


2 


12 


16 


94 


I 6 


III 


21 


4 


19 


16 


76 


I 


5 


20 


95 


I 


5 


20 


95 


I 5 


IV 


24 


6 


25 


18 


75 








23 


96 


I 


4 


23 


96 


I 4 


V 


22 


9 


31 


13 


59 








16 


73 


6 


3 


19 


86 


3 13 


VI 


24 


3 


12 


19 


79 


2 


8 


22 


92 


2 


8 


24 


100 






It may be observed from the table that throughout the grades 
the number of items omitted in the reproduction are negligible. 
The children in general are able to remember nine or more 
of the twelve items presented them. After the first grade, the 
percentages of children who do' not attempt to be verbally 
accurate is negligible, and after the first grade the percentage of 
those who do not get the sequence correct is negligible. 

Test VIII; Learning Test — Arbitrary Associations. — The 
material for this test consists of nine geometrical figures placed 
at the top of a sheet and numbered. Below these are the 
figures reproduced each one three times, without the correspond- 
ing numbers; below these is another row of the geometrical 
figures without the numbers. Figure 9 is a reproduction of the 
sheet for this test. It is laid before the child and he is told 
that at the top of the page he will see a set of figures or little 
pictures each with a number, and that below are the same kind 
of figures but without the numbers, in which he is to place 
the number of the same figure in the top row. He is then 
asked, "What number goes in the first figure?" A correct re- 
sponse shows his understanding of his task. Many children 
do not at first understand the instructions and begin to number 
the figures serially, i, 2, etc. In such case the instructions are 
repeated. When the three compact lines designed for that 
purpose are numbered they are covered and the child is told 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



I2X 



that he may number the remainder from memory. Healy and 
Fernald give an additional instruction: "When he has done 
this he is told to study well the top line until he thinks he knows 
it." This procedure is not followed by the writer because it 
introduces a confusion in the comparison of results. Some 
children take much time and some take only a glance without 
attention to the instructions. This case is a clear illustration 
df the fact of the unreliability of time measure as a measure 
of mental process. What the child is doing mentally in what- 

FiG. 9 



O + C XD )AL = 
ALO + = X( D ) 
O )AL + C x = n 



C=+nXLA)OC 

ever time he does take can only be guessed. If the sheet is 
covered as soon as the last figure is numbered the learning 
conditions will be made uniform. This test is, of course, only 
possible after the child has gained sufficient practice in writing 
numerals as to make the process automatic and thus free the 
attention from this part of the task to that of fixing the de- 
sired associations. The test, therefore bears some relation to 
the curriculum. It can not be given until after such time as 
this practice has been gained in the school. Since the following 
table shows it to be a suitable test for the first grade child it 



rt 


^ 


3 




3 




s 




3 


o 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


g 


I 


*20 


18 


go 


2 


10 


II 


55 


9 


II 


17 


13 


76 


4 


23 


12 


70 


5 


III 


21 


21 


100 








17 


80 


4 


IV 


22 


22 


100 








19 


86 


3 



122 CLARA SCHMITT 

would probably be suitable for younger children if it were de- 
vised in a form which would do away with the necessity for 
such skill. 

The scoring takes account of errors of perception — that is 
the errors made in numbering the figures from the model line' — • 
and the errors of memory. Table XXX shows the results of 
this test for the first four grades. 

TAiBLE XXX 
Test VIII. Learning Test — Arbitrary Associations- (By grade) 
Errors of Perception Errors of Memory 

I or more i or more 

No errors errors No errors errors 



^ < 

45 2-4^ 

29 2+ 

19 1 + 

13 2+ 

* Of seventeen first grade children of another private school, none made 
errors of perception, tviro made two errors each of memory. 

The table shows that throughout, the errors of perception are 
negligible and the errors of memory are negligible after the 
second grade. The average error of those who made errors 
are not more than two. 

It may be noticed that in the line for memory numbering one 
of the figures is repeated. This forms an interesting sort of 
trap for the unwary type of mind which is always exhibited 
by the defective individual. This type of person will give it 
some other than the proper number, not seeing that he has given 
different numbers to the same figure; or when he comes to it, 
he looks over his past work and finds that he has used all the 
numerals up to ten and then inserts that. The normal child 
often shows an ability to help his memory which is never ex- 
hibited by the defective individual. When the former has for- 
gotten the appropriate number for one figure he will voluntarily 
or upon suggestion go on and number the others which he 
does know; then he will look over his work again and find 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 123 

which numeral he has not yet used and place that in the for- 
gotten figure. Questioning the child will often bring out the 
process used by him in determining the forgotten item. An 
example is that of a nine-year-old boy. He was asked, "How 
did you know that was the right number?" "I guessed." 
"How?" "I looked and saw that I did not have an eight 
anywhere and I knew that must be the number." The defective 
individual has no way of helping himself out in such an 
emergency. 



VII 

CORRELATION OF THREE TESTS WITH 
SCHOOL GRADE 

The tests which have been discussed above were the ones 
chosen for standardization, leaving out for lack of time the 
few which had proved of least value in the work of the clinic. 
In order to show what correlation exists between these tests 
and general ability, three were chosen to be correlated with 
school standing of children of a uniform age. School standing 
may be taken as a rough measure of a child's general ability 
to learn, because of the varied character of school work in a 
city school. The curriculum contains reading, writing, arith- 
metic, and the application of these three tools in the acquisition 
of organized bodies of knowledge such as history, geography, 
etc. ; and it contains handwork in varying degrees of complexity 
to suit the various grades. In the Chicago schools a child is 
not retained in a grade for a second term if he fails in no 
more than one of the required subjects of that grade. This 
rule keeps the child progressing in spite of the lack of some 
one specialized ability or interest. The rule can, however, be 
of significance only for the grades above primary work. A 
child who can not learn to read, for instance, could make little 
or no progress from grade to grade since all the work of the 
school with the exception of handwork rests upon reading as a 
foundation. In the case of the defective child school grade 
may not indicate a true measure of his mental ability, — at least 
it is not always a measure of his accomplishments in the work 
of the school. Because the number of special rooms for de- 
fective children is insufficient for the supply many have to be 
kept in the regular grades. When a defective child in such 
circumstances becomes too large to sit in the seats of the grade 
appropriate to his school accomplishments, or for some other 
reason, he is sent to another room where he may more com- 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 123 

fortably be taken care of. It is seldom, that a defective child 
is found in the fifth grade or above. His progress through 
the school is at the rate of two years or more to a grade and 
at the age of fourteen he is found no higher than the fourth 
grade. On the other hand, among the foreign neighborhoods, 
many children are in low grades by reason of late entrance into 
the public school. A foreign born child, coming to America 
at the age of twelve, must, of course, be placed in the first 
or second grade to learn to read. Other children, by reason 
of physical handicaps, may be in grades which do not measure, 
perhaps, innate ability, but only what they have been able to 
accomplish under the circumstances. Poor vision or hearing 
may constitute handicaps to learning in the school, when the 
child's innate ability to learn is good. The school grade is 
not, therefore, an exact measure of mental ability. 

With the above qualifications in mind the following tables 
may be taken only as indications of an existing correlation be- 
tween the tests chosen for the purpose and general ability as 
indicated by the school grade. The tendency to positive correla- 
tion is clearly shown. 

The tests which have for prerequisites the smallest amount 
of formal training and knowledge were selected for the purpose 
of correlation with school grade of the children from 12-6 to 
13-6 seen in the clinic. All of these children came from public 
or parochial schools. Children of this age who have begun 
school at the legally required age of seven and have progressed 
normally through the school a grade a year should be in the 
seventh grade. Those who began at six, the legally permissible 
age, should be in the eighth grade. The cases were scattered 
from the first to the eighth. 

Table XXXI shows the data obtained from Test V, the puzzle 
box, arranged with reference to the qualitative reaction already 
discussed. 

The table shows that beginning with the sixth grade prac- 
tically all do the test by the planned method, and that below 
the fourth grade practically all fail. Those below the fifth 
grade are two years and more retarded in their school work. 



126 



CLARA SCHMITT 



TABLE XXXI 

Test V. Puzzle Box. (Age 12-6 to 13-6. Clinic Cases) 

Method 





f 






^ f 




— 


N r 




> 








Failur 


e 


Trial 


an 


d Error 


Planned 




Grade 


Number 


Number 


% 


Numb 


er 


% 


Number 


% 


I 


9 


7 




77 


2 




99 








II 


4 


3 




75 


I 




100 








in 


I 


I 




100 







100 








IV 


8 


2 




25 


5 




87 


I 


12 


V 


5 


I 




20 


2 




60 


2 


40 


VI 


3 










I 




33 


2 


6b 


VII 


I 


















I 


100 



VIII 
Total 



33 



14 



42 



33 



24 



A similar table was constructed for each of the ages from 11 -6 
to 15-6, the years for which the grade of which the child was 
a member in the school or at which he quit if he did so at the 
legal limit of fourteen could be most surely ascertained. These 
tables showed for each age the same large break in the per- 
centages of qualitative reaction to the test at the two year re- 
tardation point as has just been shown in the table for the 
13-year-olds. The tables were then combined to show the reac- 
tion for two year or more retarded cases and those showing- 
less than two years or no retardation. Table XXXII shows the 
data so arranged. 

TABLE XXXII 

Test V. Puzzle Box. (11-6 to 15-6, Retarded and Unretarded, Clinic Cases) 

Method 



Failure Trial & Error Planned 



^ 




^ 


d 




!d 


;3 




s 


:^ 


^ 


:? 


46 


40 


57 


8 


II 


34 



^ 



^ 



Retarded 2 yr. or more 
Unretarded 



IIS 



49 



12 
27 



10 
39 



The table shows that of the retarded cases 10 per cent were 
able to plan the work of this test, and of the unretarded cases 
39 per cent were able to plan it; that 40 per cent of the re- 
tarded failed and 11 per cent of the unretarded cases failed. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



127 



Table XXXIII shows the data obtained for the 12-6 to 13-6 
cases for Test IX, Cross Line A. 

TABLE XXXIII 

Test IX. Cross Line A. (Age 12-6 to 13-6. Clinic Cases) 

Succeeded 



Failure 



First 



Second 



Third 



Fourth 





^. 


^ 




^ 




^ 




^ 




.a 






B 


a 




g 




g 




a 




g 






p 


3 








s 




^ 




^ 




Grade 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


I 


9 


7 


77 


I 


II 




















II 


4 


2 


50 


I 


25 




















III 


3 


2 


66 


I 


33 




















IV 


II 


5 


45 


3 


27 


I 


9 


2 


18 








V 


6 


2 


33 


3 


50 








I 


16 








VI 


2 








2 


100 




















VII 


I 








I 


100 




















VIII 


2 








2 


100 




















Total 


38 


18 


47 


14 


36 


3 


7 


3 


7 









The table shows that above the fifth grade practically all 
succeed and that below the fifth grade there is a large per- 
centage of failure. 

The data of this test were arranged with reference to re- 
tardation as was the test last discussed, showing success and 
failure. Table XXXIV shows the data so arranged. 

TABLE XXXIV 
Test IX. Cross Line A. (11-6 to 15-6, Retarded and Unretarded, Clinic 

Cases) 

Failure Succeeded 



Number Number 



% 



Number 



% 



Retarded 2 yr. or more 
Unretarded 



123 
79 



45 

7 



36 



78 

72 



63 
91 



Here it is seen that of the retarded cases 63 per cent succeeded 
and of the unretarded cases 91 per cent succeeded. 

The data for test X, Cross Line B, for the 12-6 to 13-6 year 
cases is shown in Table XXXV. 



128 CLARA SCHMITT 

TABLE XXXV 
Test X. Cross Line B. (Age 12-6 to 13-6. Clinic Cases) 

Succeeded 



Failure First Second Third Fourth 





^ 


^ 




•rQ 








*P 




^ 






S 


E 




g 




•p 














3 


3 




J5 




3 




3 




^ 




Grade 


^ 


g 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


S 


^ 


I 


9 


7 


77 


I 


II 








I 


II 








II 


4 


3 


75 




















I 


25 


III 


3 


2 


66 








I 


33 














IV 


10 


6 


60 


II 


10 


3 


30 














V 


7 


I 


14 


3 


42 


2 


28 


I' 


14 








VI 


6 








5 


83 








I 


16 








VII 


I 








I 


100 




















VIII 


2 








2 


100 




















Total 


42 


19 


45 


12 


28 


6 


14 


2 


4 


I 


2 



This table also shows the large percentage of success above 
the fifth grade and the very large percentage of failure below 
that grade. Table XXXVI shows the data with reference to 
retarded and unretarded cases. 

TABLE XXXVI 

Test X. Cross Line B. (in-6 to 15-6, Retarded and Unretarded, Clinic Cases) 

Failure Succeeded 
Number Number % Number % 

Retarded 2 yr. or more 123 52 41 71 57 

Unretarded 84 4 4 80 95 

This table shows that S7 per cent of the retarded cases and 
95 per cent of the unretarded succeeded with this test. 



VIII 

INDIVIDUAL REACTIONS TO HEALY-FERNALD 

TESTS 

The following seven tables show the individual data of the 
children of the private school to those tests which involve quali- 
tative types of reaction. 

The first column to the left shows the individual number of 
the child when the data were recorded from the original notes. 
The next column records age ; the third grade, and the following 
columns the type of reaction to each test. 



TABiLE XXXVII 
Reaction of Kindergarten Children to Healy-Fernald Tests 



Test III 
Chance, Learning -[- 
Tr. and Er., Learning 
Tr. and Er., Learning 
Chance, Learning -|- 
Planned 

Chance, Learning + 
Chance, Learning -j- 
Tr. and Er., Learning 
Chance, Learning -f- 
Chance, Learning -j- 
Chance, Learning -j- 
Chance, Learning -[- 
Planned 
Planned 

Tr. and Er., Learning 
Tr. and Er., Learning 
Chance, Learning + 
Tr. and Er., Learning 
Chance, Learning -)- 
Chance, Learning -(- 
Chance, Learning -\- 
Planned 

Chance, Learning -{- 
Planned 

Chance, Learning + 
Chance, Learning -j- 
+ Method for second attempt. Trial and 
* Made errors, but method planned. 



No. 


Age 


Grade 


157 


5 + 


Kdg. 


158 


5 + 


" 


140 


5- 3 


" 


155 


5-8 


it 


145 


5- 9 


" 


154 


5- 9 


" 


138 


5-10 


** 


160 


5-10 


** 


141 


5-II 


" 


159 


5-II 




149 


6 


(( 


132 


6- I 


" 


139 


6- I 


" 


137 


6- 2 


" 


144 


6- 2 


<i 


143 


6-3 


** 


153 


6- 4J 


" 


135 


6-5 


tt 


142 


6- 6 


(1 


146 


6- 6 


" 


152 


6- 6 


" 


134 


6-10 


(t 


151 


7 


t( 


136 


7- 4 


" 


147 


7-10 


(( 


148 


8- I 


(( 



Test IV 
Chance, Readjustment — * 
Chance, Readjustment + 
Planned, Readjustment + 
Chance, Readjustment — * 
Planned, Readjustment -)- 
Planned, Readjustment -\- 
Chance, Readjustment -|- 
Planned, Readjustment -}- 
Tr. and Er., Readjustment -|- 
Chance, Readjustment — * 
Tr. and Er., Readjustment -|- 
Chance, Readjustment + 
Planned, Readjustment + 
Tr. and Er., Readjustment -\- 

j- Chance, Readjustment -j- 

j- Planned, Readjustment + 
Planned, Readjustment -\- 

\- Chance, Readjustment — * 
Planned, Readjustment + 
Chance, Readjustment -|- 
Tr. and Er., Readjustment -}- 
Planned, Readjustment -}- 
Chance, Readjustment -\- 
Planned, Readjustment + 
Planned, Readjustment -j- 
Tr. and Er., Readjustment -f- 

Error. 



+ 



130 



CLARA SCHMITT 



TABLE XXXVIII 
Reaction of First Grade Children to Healy-Fernald Tests 



















Test 


Nio. 


Age ' 


Grade Test II] 


[ Test IV 


Test V 


Test IX 


X 


93 


6.6 


I 


Planned 


Planned 


Tr. 


and Er, 


I St 


ist 


39 


6-6 




Chance 


Planned 




F* 


F 


F 


92 


6-6 




Planned 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


list 


3rd 


96 


6-7 




Tr. and Er.Tr. and Er. 




F 


1st 


1st 


91 


7 




Chance 


Chance 




F 


F 


F 


94 


7-1 




Planned 


Planned 




F 


I'St 


F 


127 


7-1 




Chance 


Planned 




F 


3rd 


3rd 


86 


7-2 




Chance 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


ISt 


129 


7-4 




Chance 


Tr. and Er. 




F 


1st 


1st 


98 


7-5 




Chance 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


F 


88 


7-5 




Planned 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


4th 


128 


7-5 




Chance 


Tr. and Er. 




F 


3rd 


1st 


90 


7-7 




Tr. and Er.Chance 




F 


ISIt 


F 


87 


7-10 




Chance 


Chance 




F 


IS't 


1st 


97 


8 




Chance 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


2nd 


95 


8 




Tr. and Er.Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


rst 


131 


8 




Tr. and Er.Planned 


Tr. 


and Er. 


4th 


F 


125 


8 




Chance 


Tr. and Er. 




F 


4t'h 


2nd 


126 


8-2 




Chance 


Planned 




F 


1st 


1st 


89 


8-6 




Planned 


Chance 


Tr. 


and Er. 


1st 


1st 


*F = 


= Failure 















TABLE XXXIX 
Reaction of Second Grade Children to Healy-Fernald Tests 



-No. 

32 

36 

29 

37 

38 

27 

30 
34 
31 
33 
28 
2Z 
25 
24 
26 
22 



Age 
7-6 
7-7 
7-8 
7-8 
7-8 
7-9 
7-9 
7-10 
7-10 
7-i'i 



8-9 

8-10 

9-3 



Grade Test III 

II Tr. and Er. 

" Chance 

" Tr. and Er. 

" Planned 

" Tr. and Er. 

" Tr. and Er. 

" Tr. and Er. 

" Planned 

" Planned 

" Chance 

" Planned 

" Chance 

" Planned 

" Planned 

" Planned 

" Planned 

" Planned 



Test IV 
Chance 
Chance 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Chance 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Planned 
Chance 
Tr. and Er. 



Test V 

F 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 

F 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Tr. and Er. 
Planned 
Tr. and Er. 



Test IX 
1st 
rst 
1st 
1st 
F 
1st 
1st 

ISt 

1st 
rst 

ISt 

2nd 

ISt 

F 

1st 

ISt 
ISt 



Test X 
1st 
rst 
1st 
i-st 
F 
1st 
F 

I'Sit 

2nd 

ust 

2nd 

i-st 

1st 

4th 

1st 

4th 

4th 



Test XI 
Idea — 
Idea — 
Idea — 
Idea — 



Idea — 



Idea -\- 

Idea + 

Idea — 

Idea — 

Idea — 

Idea — 

Idea + 

Idea — 

Idea — 

Idea — 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 



131 



TABLE XL 
Reaction of Third Grade Children to Healy-Fernald Tests 

No. Age Grade Test III Test IV Test V Test IX Test X Test XI 

20 8 III Chance Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist Idea — 

21 8-2 " Planned Chance Tr. and Er. ist 2nd Idea + 

6 8-8 " Planned Planned Tr. and Er. 4th ist Idea — 

12 8-9 " Tr. and Er. Chance Tr. and Er. ist ist Idea + 

10 8-10 " Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist Idea — 
29 " Planned Chance F ist ist Idea — 
39 " Planned Planned F ist ist ? 

13 9-2 " Chance Chance Tr. and Er. ist I'st Idea + 
5 9-2 " Planned Planned F ist ist Idea — 

7 9-2 " Chance Chance Tr. and Er. ist ist ? 

8 9-2 " Planned Planned Planned ist ist Idea — 
II 9-3 " Planned Chance Tr. and Er. 1st rst Idea + 

11 9-4 " Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. ist I'st Idea -j- 
4 9-4 " Planned Planned Planned ist ist Idea -j- 

9 9-4 " Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist Idea -j- 

17 9-9 " Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist rst Idea -j- 
16 9-9 " Planned Chance Tr. and Er. ist Pst Idea -j- 

18 9-11 " Chance Tr. and Er. Tr. and Er. ist 3rd Idea — 

14 10-2 " Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist Pst Idea + 

15 10-4 " Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. ist 3rd Idea — 

19 10-4 " Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. 1st I'st Idea + 



TABLE XLI 
Reaction of Fourth Grade Children to Healy-Fernald Tests 



No. Age 



41 


9 


42 


9-4 


43 


9-4 


40 


9-5 


56 


9-9 


S3 


9-9 


47 


9-9 


51 


9-10 


48 


9-10 


45 


10 


50 


10- 1 


55 


10-2 


52 


10-2 


46 


10-4 


49 


10-4 


54 


10-5 


57 


lo-s 


44 


10-5 


61 


10-8 


59 


10-9 


60 


xo-9 


58 


11-2 


63 


1 1-6 



Grade Test III Test IV Test V Test IX Test X 

IV Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist rst 

" Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist 

" Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. 4th ist 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist 3rd 

" Planned Planned F rst 1st 

" Planned Planned Planned ist rst 

" Tr. and Er. Planned Planned ist ist 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist rst 

" Planned Tr. and Er. Planned ist ist 

" Tr. and Er. Planned F ist 4th 

" Planned Planned Planned ist ist 

" Tr. and Er. Planned Tr. and Er. 4th 3rd 

" Tr. and Er. Chance Tr. and Er. ist rst 

" Planned Chance Tr. and Er. ist 4th 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist ist 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. ist rst 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. 2nd 4th 

" Planned Planned Tr. and Er. 4th 3rd 

" Planned Planned Planned ist rst 

" Planned Planned Planned rst ist 

" Planned Planned Planned ist ist 

" Planned Chance Tr. and Er. ist rst 



Test XI 

dea + 

dea -\- 

dea 4- 

dea — 

dea + 

dea -j- 

dea — 

dea -1- 

dea — 

dea — 

dea -f- 

dea -j- 

dea -j- 

dea — 

dea — 

dea + 
? 

dea — 

dea — 

dea + 

dea 4- 

dea — 

dea -f- 

dea -j- 



132 



CLARA SCHMITT 





Reaction of Fifth 


TABLE 5 
Grade Child 


CLII 

ren to Healy-Fernald 


Tests 




No. Age Grade Test III 


Test IV 


Test V Test IX Test X 


Tesit XI 


66 


[0-3 V 


Planned 


Chance 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Idea -f 


65 


to-3 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


I'St 


Idea + 


64 


[0-5 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


list 


1st 


Idea — 


67 


[0-6 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


liSt 


1st 


Idea — 


69 


[0-6 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


1st 


Idea + 


72 


[I " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


1st 


Idea -f 


71 


ri-2 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


1st 


Idea + 


73 


[1-2 " 


Chance 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


2nd 


Idea — 


68 


[I -5 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


rst 


Idea + 


70 


[■i-S " 


Chance 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Idea -f 


74 


[1-6 " 


Chance 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


2nd 


Idea -f 


78 


[1-6 " 


Planned 


Chance 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


rst 


Idea -f 


79 


ir-8 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


1st 


Idea + 


77 


12 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Idea + 


76 


[2-1 " 


Chance 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


IS't 


2nd 


Idea — 


75 


[2-2 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


? 


83 


[2-6 " 


Planned 


Chance 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


rst 


Idea + 


80 


[2-7 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


1st 


Idea — 


82 . 


[2-7 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


3rd 


Idea -f 


84 


[2-1 1 " 


Chance 


Chance 


Planned 


1st 


1st 


Idea — 


81 


12-11 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


1st 


1st 


Idea -1- 


85 


[3-8 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Idea + 



TABLE XLIII 
Reaction of Sixth Grade Children to Healy-IPernald Tests 



No. 


Age Grade Test III 


Test IV 


Test V Test IX 


Test X 


Test XI 


115 


12 VI 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


list 


1st ] 


[dea 


— 


116 


12 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Mea 


+ 


124 


12 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


rst 


Idea 


+ 


105 


12-1 " 


Chance 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


1st 


1st ] 


[dea 




109 


12-1 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


Idea 


+ 


104 


112- 1 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


1st ] 


dea 




123 


12-1 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


rst 


;dea 


+ 


I'll 


12-2 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


IBt 


dea 


+ 


100 


12-2 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


ISt 


ISt ] 


dea 




114 


12-3 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


PSt ] 


dez 


+ 


102 


12-6 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


Planned 


rst 


ISt ] 


dea 


— 


106 


12-6 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


ISt 


dea 


+ 


1.19 


12-8 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


list 


ISt ] 


dea 




118 


12-8 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Chance 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


ISt ] 


dea 


+ 


113 


12-8 " 


Chance 


Planned 


Planned 


1st 


rst 


? 




108 


12-9 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


liSt 


1st ] 


dea 


— 


103 


12-9 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


ISt 


1st ] 


dea 


— 


120 


12-111 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


rst ] 


[dea 


— 


99 


13 


Planned 


Planned 




ISt 


1st ] 


dea 


' 






122 


13 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


ISt 


rst 


'dea 


+ 


121 


13 " 


Tr. and Er. 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


ust 


dea 


+ 


117 


13-A " 


Tr. and Er. 


Chance 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


IS* ] 


dea 


— 


no 


13-5 " 


Planned 


Planned 


Planned 


ISt 


ISt 


^'dea 


+ 


107 


14-2 " 


Planned 


Tr. and Er. 


Tr. and Er. 


ISt 


rst ] 


dea 


+ 



IX 

SUMMARY OF STANDARDIZATION OF HEALY- 
FERNALD TESTS 

From the tables and discussions above may be summarized 
the reaction to be expected of children of different ages to each 
test. 

Test I, Introductory Puzzle. — Accomplished by children of 
kindergarten age or experience. Eighty-nine per cent make less 
than five errors in performing the test exclusive of the triangle. 
Triangle constitutes a learning test. 

Test IT. Special Picture Puzzle. — At the age of 9-6 to 10-6 
accomplished by 75 per cent with not more than two errors. 

Test HI. Construction Puzzle A. — At the age of 10-6, 90 
per cent do the test by the planned method. Under the age of 
8-6 is done by a large percentage by chance. Constitutes a learn- 
ing test for children of kindergarten age. 

Test IV. Construction Puzzle B. — At the age of 8-6 to 9-6, 
65 per cent of the children do the test by the planned method. 
Constitutes a learning test and a test of readjustment of an 
already learned content to fit an altered situation for children 
of kindergarten age. 

Test V. Puzzle Box.. — At the age of 10-6 to 11 -6 the test 
is performed by the planned method by 72 per cent of the 
children tested. 

Test IX. Cross Line Test A. — Performed by 75 per cent 
of children of first grade experience (so graded because of 
necessity of accomplishment of writing numbers) — with not 
more than two trials. 

Test X. Cross Line Test B. — Performed by 69 per cent of 
children of second grade with not more than two trials. Per- 
formed by 65 per cent of children of first grade with not more 
than three trials. 

Test XL Code Test. — The reasoning step is performed by 



134 CLARA SCHMITT 

60 per cent of children of fourth grade. At the fourth grade 
and above the average error is not more than four out of the 
possible eleven. 

Test XV. Opposite Test. — Performed by 62 per cent of 
children between 6-6 and ^-6 with not more than two errors 
out of a possible twenty. 

Test XII. Memory for Visual Verbal Presentation. — Sixty^one 
per cent of children of third grade recall not less than fifteen items 
of the twenty. Is not suitable for children under second grade 
because of necessity of reading accomplishment. 

Test XIII. Memory from Auditory Verbal Presentation. — 
Eighty-four per cent of first grade children recall not less than 
nine items of the twelve. 

Test Villi. Learning Test, Arbitrary Associations. — Pern 
formed by 55 per cent of children of first grade with no error, 
and by 45 per cent with average of two errors; by 70 per cent 
of second grade children with no errors. 

The above summary may be arranged with reference to grade. 
After each test in the summary below is indicated the reaction 
to be expected of the children of the grade under which the 
test is listed. The type of reaction shown by approximately 
75 per cent of the children of the grade is indicated as the one 
to be expected of the grade. In case this percentage is dis- 
tributed over two or more types of reaction these types are 
indicated with the one which is preferable mentioned first. 
Where a test has reached a maximum in one grade or which 
shows little variation for several grades it is not repeated in 
the summary for the higher grades. 

Kindergarten 

Test I. Errors with paired pieces. Triangle by trial and 
error, learning test. 

Test II. Accomplish (in contrast with defectives of same 
age) with much trial and error. 

Test III. Trial and error or chance, learning test. 

Test IV. Trial and error or chance, learning test. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 135 

Grade I 

Test I. Less than three errors. Triangle by trial and error. 
Test II. Errors of paired pieces. 
Test III. Trial and error or chance. 
Test IV. Trial and error or chance. 
Test V. Failure. 

Test IX. Succeed with second trial. 
Test X. Succeed first to fourth trial. 

Test XV. Succeed (in contrast with defectives) with less than 
four errors. 

Test XIII. Recall nine or more items. 
Test VIII. Two errors of memory. 

Grade II 

Test I. Triangle, trial and error or planned. 

Test III. Trial and error or planned. 

Test IV. Planned or trial and error. 

Test V. Trial and error. 

Test IX. Succeed first trial. 

Test X. Succeed first to third trial. 

Test XI. Idea — , eight errors. 

Test XV. Less than three errors. 

Test XII. Twelve or more items. (In the column, 14 or less.) 

Table XXVIII, p. 117, are included three children who remem- 
bered less than twelve items.) 
Test XIII. Nine or more items. 

Grade III 

Test III. Planned or trial and error. 

Test IV. Planned or trial and error. 

Test V. Trial and error. 

Test IX. Succeed first trial. 

Test X. Succeed first trial. 

Test XI. Idea + or — , seven errors. 

Test XV. Three or less errors. 



136 CLARA SCHMITT 

Grade IV 
Test III. Planned. 
Test IV. Planned. 
Test V. Trial and error. 
Test XI. Idea + , four errors. 

Grade V 

Test V. Planned or trial and error. 
Test XL Idea + , two errors. 



X 

SCHOOL SUBJECTS AS MATERIAL FOR TESTS OF 
MENTAL ABILITY 

In several large cities the school child, because of his un- 
favorable reactions to the school situation, comes in for clinical 
diagnosis of mental and physical condition. Since it is the 
child's reaction to the school situation which is at fault, it is 
well to test him along the line of the special abilities which he 
is expected to develop under the conditions of the school situa- 
tion. The school subjects may be made to form a series of 
tests which can be used from year to year to measure or check 
up the development of special abilities. The curriculum of the 
school forms a serial arrangement of accomplishments proceed- 
ing from the simplest subject-matter of the first grade to the 
complexities of the eighth grade. Such an arrangement of tests 
derived from the school subjects, as forms a psychological serial 
arrangement from that which is simplest to that which is com- 
plex may be derived from the curriculum as it exists. The 
following series of tests and suggestions for the evaluation 
of the child's development with reference to the school curric- 
ulum has resulted from an examination of several hundred 
children considered by the school to be unfavorable in their 
reaction to the school situation, and a comparison of them with 
children considered normal with regard to their reaction to 
the school situation. The subjects chosen for this series of 
tests are those of reading, writing and arithmetic. 

Reading. — The most important accomplishment in the school 
life is that of reading. The child's progress throughout the 
school is dependent entirely upon his attaining it. Upon it 
depends his progress to a large extent in arithmetic and almost 
entirely in history and geography and other such subjects which 
consist of classified or organized groups of facts. The ac- 
complishment of the child in this subject may be arranged with 



138 CLARA SCHMITT 

reference to quantity and quality. A defective child may be 
deficient in one or both of these two characteristics of the 
reading accomplishment. He may be incapable of learning to 
recognize the words of the printed page; he may show himself 
capable of learning words only very slowly or of forgetting 
them quickly and easily; he may show himself capable of learn- 
ing words with some facility in memorizing them, and so of 
becoming a good reader, but incapable of gaining ideas from 
the words which he reads. It is this latter characteristic which 
one is to understand as included in its various aspects under the 
term "quality." 

The child may show an ability to recognize words from 
the printed page to a greater or less extent, but this recognition 
with the defective child consists largely, merely of a mechanical 
type of visual memory which serves as stimulus for its associated 
vocal prototype. The child who learns words in this way only 
is always dependent upon his teacher, since he can acquire for 
himself no new or unfamiliar word from the printed page. 
He can become somewhat independent of his teacher only if 
he learns phonetic values. Defective children are sometimes 
capable of acquiring very large visual vocabularies but show 
themselves quite deficient in perceiving phonetic relationships. 
Children of the first grade may be expected to acquire the 
simplest phonetic elements of the English language.* The child 
who can obtain a visual vocabulary with facility, who gains a 
perception of the simple phoentic values, and who learns to 
combine them correctly for the independent learning of new 
words is considered a favorable reactor so far as the subject 
of reading of the first grade is concerned in the public schools. 
The various steps from the early period of the reading ac- 
complishment to its complex fulfillment are indicated as follows : 

I. Quantity 

I. Knows no words. — This is the condition of the average 

child when he enters school at six or seven years of 

age, and is one persisted in by the low type of defective 

* Cf. Chicago Public Schools, Course of Study for the Elementary Schools, 
1912. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 139 

child for several years or longer. This low type of defective 
child shows himself incapable of perceiving the fine differences 
which serve to distinguish one word from another on the printed 
page, though he is able to use spoken language. Some knowledge 
of the degree of his defectiveness may be gained when one 
knows the length of time in which he has persisted in this 
disability. 

2. Can recognize a fezv unrelated words. — This is the ac- 
complishment of the average normal child after a few days 
spent in the school. It is a condition persisted in by many 
defective children sometimes for years. In such case, the de- 
fective child has learned a word here and a word there which 
have stuck in his memory, and he recognizes them wherever 
he sees them. He shows himself, however, incapable of gain- 
ing sufficient words to make his reading a consecutive process 
with regard to meaning. The words which he does learn bear, 
perhaps, no relation to the amount or type of teaching that 
has been given. The learning of them is largely a matter of 
chance, and just why certain words have been learned and 
many others imparted at the same time in his instruction have 
been forgotten cannot be determined. 

3. Can read entire sentence in the first or some other reader. — 
This step in its simplest form is attained by the child after 
a few weeks in school. The reader which he has in school, — 
if because of being a defective he is placed in an ungraded 
room,' — compared with the number of years that the child has 
been in school is some measure of his defectiveness in learning 
to read. 

4. Can read at sight any material such as newspapers, etc. — 
This is the highest grade which may be attained in the ability 
to read, with reference to quantity. It is attained by the normal 
child with the fifth grade. 

The phonetics which underlie the reading process is the great 
stumbling block of the defective child. Seldom is one found who 
has this accomplishment. He may be able to learn a very few 
of the simplest combinations, such as consist of one or two 
consonants and a vowel. The normal child progresses in his 



I40 CLARA SCHMITT 

knowledge of phonetic values, to such an extent that he becomes 
independent of the teacher in so far as the illogical complexities 
of our English spelling permit. At the fourth grade the normal 
child is able to work out new and unfamiliar words with approxi- 
mate phonetic correctness, 

II. Quality 

I. Mechanical. — The defective child may be able to ac- 
complish with reference to quantity in reading anything 
between the limits set above from the lowest to the highest 
stage of accomplishment. However great his accomplishment 
in the quantity of his reading he is unable to read a new passage 
other than mechanically, that is all he can do is, to use a 
familiar popular phrase, parrot-like. This type of reading may 
be described as a straight line association between the visual 
and the vocal centers. The child makes no, or few, other asso- 
ciations with the ideas gained from the printed page before 
him. The words or ideas which he reads do not relate them- 
selves in his mind with anything else he has read or with other 
experiences he has had, such that a complex of related ideas 
are 'formed in his mind which he )can reproduce orally or 
otherwise. He can reproduce few, if any, of the ideas which 
the page contains. Upon being asked what he has read about, 
he remains dumb or answers merely with a word or phrase 
contained in what he has read. This type of reading may be 
suspected from the monotonous tone with which it is delivered. 
An extreme example of this was that of a girl of eleven, found 
in the second grade. She had attained the fourth step in 
quantity, and was very proficient in her rendering of phonetic 
values. She read a long paragraph, of which the following 
is the beginning sentence : ''It was in the spring of the year 
1826 about ten o'clock, when Mr. Amos Bliss, manager and one 
of the proprietors of the Northern Spectator, was in the garden, 
behind his house planting potatoes," etc. This selection was 
taken from a Fifth Reader which she had never seen. She 
pondered over the unfamiliar words spectator, manager, pro- 
prietors, and pronounced them correctly, with very little loss 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 141 

of time. The other words in the selection were read with 
httle or no hesitation. Upon being asked what she had read 
about, she made no reply; and when the question was repeated 
she finally said, "It was about a horse." The selection con- 
tained no reference to a horse, but the opposite page contained 
a picture of one. The normal child, when reading material 
which is not familiar to him must give much attention to spelling 
and deciphering unfamiliar words, he will often because of 
this distraction, be unable to give the sense of the selection 
read, A judgment of the quality of the child's reading should, 
therefore, in every case be deduced only from material which 
he reads with reasonable facility and which contains few if any 
unfamiliar words, 

2, Appreciative. — This type of reading is the opposite of the 
mechanical type just discussed. With this type there is usually 
expression of tone in reading which shows the child's under- 
standing or appreciation of the selection read. Upon being 
questioned, he can tell in a sentence or more, the essential ele- 
ments of the selection. It is usually a sure sign that the reading 
has been appreciative if pleasure is shown. However, expression 
is not an infallible test. Defective children may be trained to 
read selections with expression, and if the circumstances of the 
training have been pleasant the child may incorporate these 
pleasant associations into the reading process itself, so that 
he seems to be enjoying the ideas derived from the selection. 
In such a case, however, he fails to read with expression or 
to reproduce the sense of the meaning when the same material 
is arranged in unfamiliar form, 

3. Apperceptive.' — This is a grade of performance above the 
appreciative, in that there is a relating of what is read to ^ 
larger complex of knowledge or experience in addition to the 
reproducing of content. In this type of reading the child can 
reproduce orally without further prompting the essential details 
and can give an interpretation of a selection. Fables Itend 
themselves readily to such an interpretive test. Defective children 
often can answer correctly any questions asked about a selection 
read, but are unable to organize it for themselves and are unable 



142 CLARA SCHMITT 

to give an interpretation of its meaning when the material is 
of a literary type other than that of didactic narrative. 

4. Initiative. — Reads voluntarily. Many children who attain 
the highest stage as relates to quantity in reading may at the 
same time really be able to gain so little from such abstractly 
represented ideas that they never voluntarily read for their own 
pleasure. Many children who have not yet gained the highest 
stage as relates to quantity still read voluntarily because of a 
desire to gain knowledge or to meet certain social demands. 
It is seldom that a defective child reads from any other motive 
than to please his teacher. 

Results of Reading Tests for Normal and Defective 

Children 

Two selections to test ability in reading were given to seven- 
teen children of each grade from the first to the sixth, chosen 
from five public schools of Chicago. Three from each grade 
were chosen from four schools and five from another. These 
schools were situated in foreign speaking districts. Of the 
eighty-five children tested, thirty-eight came from homes which 
were counted as English speaking, since the mother was able 
to speak English. In the remaining forty-seven homes, accord- 
ing to the testimony of the children and the teachers who knew 
them, the mothers could not speak English. 

The teachers were given the following directions for choosing 
the children for the test : Select children who are. average good 
readers for the grade; do not select the very best reader you 
have. Select them from that age of which yon hazre the most; 
that is, if you have more nine-year-old children than any other 
age select nine-year-old ones. The first grade teachers were 
asked to select only those who had begun school in September. 
The teachers consulted the record of ages upon entrance in 
September. The tests were given during six weeks of May 
and June. The children of the first grade were, then, near 
the seventh birthday; the second grade were near the eighth; 
the third grade were near the ninth; the fourth grade were 
near the tenth; and .the fifth grade were near the eleventh. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 143 

The defective children who were given the tests at the same 
time and in the same way were between the ages of ten and 
sixteen who had been in the special rooms for defective chil- 
dren for at least one year. Many of them had been in these 
rooms for several years. With one exception the rooms were 
situated in the same schools in which the normal children were 
tested. There were five such rooms; forty-six children of the 
eighty who constituted the membership of these rooms fell 
within the conditions chosen. None of them had uncorrected 
defects of sight or hearing. 

The first of the selections chosen was the story of The Fox 
and the Grapes. 

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES 

One day a fox went down the road. 

"How hungry I am!" he said. "I wish I could find something 
to eat." 

Just then he saw a grapevine. It had ripe grapes on it. 

"Oh, how good those grapes look! I will have some," said 
the fox. 

But he could not reach the grapes. They were too high on 
the vine. 

He jumped high up in the air, but he could not get them. 

At last he went away hungry. 

The birds heard him say, "Those old grapes are sour. 

They are not good for a fine fox like me." 

But the birds knew better. 

This selection was made in order to give each child some- 
thing to read that he had been taught in school. The story is 
one of the lessons of the first reader taught toward the end 
of the first year. All but the first group of first grade children 
tested had read it. The general practice of the school with such 
stories as this is to read, recount, and discuss, and in some 
instances dramatize the story. If the children had not all 
had an opportunity to recount the story individually they had 
heard some of their classmates do so and had joined in the 
discussion of it. All the defective children had had opportunity 



144 CLARA SCHMITT 

to hear it and read it and doubtless to recount it several times, 
since much attention is given t(o such w^ork with the defective 
children. Each child had spent at least two years in the first 
garde before entering the special room. 

The defective children were all mentally at least seven years 
of age according to the Binet scale. With the exception of the 
stamp counting test with which three failed, all could pass all 
the tests for seven years of age. All could do the Thorndike 
a test with no more than three errors. All could do the Healy- 
Fernald Test I as well as the average of the first grade. With 
tests of greater complexity there was much variation. 

The data recorded include time for reading the selection, 
errors of pronunciation, verbatim reproduction of the story, and 
the correctness or falseness of the interpretation of the motive 
of the fox in saying the grapes are sour. This last item was 
obtained by asking after the child had given his reproduction 
of the story, "Were the grapes sour?" If the answer was, "No," 
then, "Why did he say so?" The interpretation was considered 
correct when the child indicated that the fox was disgruntled 
at not being able to get the grapes. The idea was not always 
expressed in words, but some times in an inflection of the voice 
in the answer, "Just because he couldn't get them." If the 
answer to the first question was, "Yes," then, "How did he 
know?" To this question there was sometimes an attempt to 
make an explanation such as that of one child, "He looked at 
them," but generally there was silence. 

The reproduction was classed under the following heads, 
scant, adequate, and full. That reproduction was classed as 
scant which did not contain a sufficient number of the essential 
details to tell the story, or which had them so mixed or otherwise 
wrong that the story was not correctly rendered. An adequate 
reproduction contained enough details to indicate the story, but 
with little or none of the embellishing details of dramatic setting. 
The full reproduction contained all or nearly all the items of 
the original story. 

The two following reproductions were classed scant. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 145 

''The fox couldn't reach the grapes, he went away hungry, 
the birds knew better." 

"The fox was hungry, he wanted something to eat, so the 
birds said them grapes are not good, they are sour." 

It should be remarked here that no reproduction was classed 
scant if the child could answer a series of questions which 
would bring out his understanding of the story, such as, "What 
did he try to get? What did he say?" etc. 

The following is one of the poorest in the matter of detail 
of the reproductions classed as adequate: 

"About the fox, he was hungry, and he wanted some grapes 
to eat, they were too high and he could not get them and he 
said those grapes are sour." 

The following is a full reproduction: 

''One day the fox went down the road, he was very hungry, 
he said I wish I had something to eat, then he saw a grape 
vine, it had ripe grapes on it, how nice it looked, I will get 
some, but he could not get any, then he went away hungry, 
the birds heard him say, those grapes are sour, those grapes are 
not good for a fox, but the birds knew better." 

In recording mispronunciations those words which the child 
could not decipher in ten seconds were classed with the mis- 
pronounced. Words mispronounced in reading such as then 
for they were called to the child's attention with the question, 
"Is it then?" If he then pronounced it correctly the word was 
not classed with the mispronunciations. The time record for 
normal children includes time taken up in this way. For the 
defective children a time record was seldom of any significance 
because of the many corrections and helps necessary to get the 
child through the selection. 

The first grade children of the first school tested varied so 
widely from the other first grade groups that their record could 
not be included in the averages. Their performance supported 
the assertion of the principal that this particular group of 
foreigners were very slow in learning to read. It is possible 
that their record would have been nearer the average if they 
had been tested last. The same backwardness in reading- was 



146 CLARA SCHMITT 

ex!hibited somewhat by the second grade of that school but not 
sufficiently to make necessary their elimination from the av- 
erages. The third grade showed no variation. 

Table XLIV shows the data gained from Selection I. 

TABLE XLIV 

DIata of Reading Test I 

iReproduction Inter- 
Number Average , ' v pretation 

of Average number Ade- t ' \ 

Grade children time errors Scant quate Full -f — 

I 12 82" .539066 

II 17 62" o o 9 8 6 II 

III 17 48" o o 4 13 13 4 

IV 17 48" o o 5 12 IS 2 

The time average for the first grade of the above table had 
a range as follows : two took between two and three minutes 
to read the selection; six between one and two minutes; three 
less than one minute. The error average was made up of one 
child's five errors and two other errors made by two children. 

The time average for the second grade ranged; one between 
two and three minutes, four between one and two minutes, 
seven less than one minute. There was little variation in the 
tim'e of the third and fourth grades. 

It is rather significant of the small child's ability to under- 
stand the point of the fable type of story that though all these 
children had been taught this story and had discussed it more 
or less, it is at the third grade that it is understood. The chil- 
dren of the first and second grades who gave a correct inter- 
pretation probably only reproduced their teaching. 

The errors in pronunciation made by the normal children 
in this and the second reading test was always in favor of a 
word which had considerable visual or phonetic resemblance 
to the correct word. The errors made by the defective children 
with the first selection which was perfectly familiar to them 
in content, at least, were absurd so far as visual or phonetic 
values were concerned, but were calculated to fill in the context. 
The defective child reads, for instance, that the fox saw a 
vine with berries on it. Because of the great prevalence of this 
type of variation the performance of the defective group can 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 147 

not be compared with that of the normal. Another type of 
comparison will be made below. 

The second selection was chosen because of its unfamiliarity, 
of its wide range of verbal difficulty, and simplicity of content, 
which at the same time possessed a definite unity. It was taken 
from page 177 of Jones' Fifth Reader. This reader is not 
in use in the schools, and probably had never been seen by 
any of the children who read the selection. Since the verbal 
expression is rather complex and the words used are not those of 
the ordinary child's every day vocabulary it was desirable to keep 
the content matter simple, that not too many difficulties would 
confront the child at the same time. The paragraph selected 
was: It was a fine spring morning in the year 1826 about ten 
o'clock, zvhen Mr. Amos Bliss, the manager and one of the 
proprietors of the Northern Spectator, might have been seen in 
the garden behind his house planting potatoes. He heard the 
gate open behind him, and, without turning or looking round, 
became dimly conscious of the presence of a boy. But the boys 
of country villages go into whosoever garden their zvandering 
fancy impels them, and supposing this boy to be one of his own 
neighbors, Mr. Bliss continued his zvork and quickly forgot that 
he was not alone. 

The same data as for the first test were recorded, except 
that there is no interpretation for this one. 

Following is an example of a reproduction classed as 
adequate: 

''A man was planting potatoes in his back yard and a boy came 
in and he thought it was one of his neighbor boys and he didn't 
pay attention to him and forgot he wasn't alone." 

The following reproduction was classed as fidl. "Mr. Bliss 
was planting potatoes behind his house, he looked up suddenly 
and there was a boy coming in his yard, but in that country 
the boys go wherever their fancy impels them and he thought 
it was one of his neighbors and kept on with his work and 
after a while he forgot that he was not alone." 

No child grasped the significance of the title, manager and 
one of the proprietors of the Northern Spectator. 



B CLARA SCHMJTT 

Table XLV shows the data of the second selection. 







TABLE XLV 












Data for 


Reading Test 


II 








Number 


Average 
time 


Average 
; number 
errors 




Reproduction 




Grade 


Scant 


Adequate 


Full 


II 
III 

IV 
V 


17 
17 
17 
17 


194" 
91" 

74" 
54" 


7.8 
2.8 

I.O 

•5 


14 

13 

6 




3 

4 
7 
9 





4 
8 



The words most frequently mispronounced were, manager 
proprietors. Northern, Spectator, conscious, whosoever, impels, 
continued. The mistakes of the normal children consist, for 
the most part, of misplaced accent, the omission of an obscure 
syllable in long words, or giving a different phonetic value than 
is the right one for the word in which the letter is found. Thus 
manager becomes manager; proprietors becomes proprietors, or 
propetors, etc. 

Results of Reading Tests for Defective Children 
The reading of the defective children presents such irregular 
characteristics that averages which would present any meaning 
are difficult to obtain. The children tested had been much 
drilled in the story of the fox and the grapes. Nevertheless 
twenty-four of the forty-six could read it with less facility 
than the first grade children. They made many errors of the 
absurd type discussed above. Their reading consisted of some 
unerring recognition of words and more or less filling in to 
supply a remembered context. Nine of the defectives could 
give only a scant account of the story and an incorrect in- 
terpretation. 

Twelve defective children were graded as equal to the first 
grade child in reading ability. Ten were graded equal to the 
second grade child in ability as regards the mechanical and 
qualitative aspects of the second reading test. Two of the 
defectives of the second grade could give an adequate account 
of the matter read. One of these children was ten years of 
age and by reason of this test and others was reclassified on 
his record sheet as only backward and returned to the regular 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS i49 

grades of the school. The other, twelve years of age, was so 
deficient in other tests that he was retained in the special room. 
Table XLV shows that it is only with the fourth grade that 
such mechanical skill in reading has been attained as to admit 
of sufficient attention to content to enable the child to give an 
adequate reproduction of an unfamiliar selection. With the 
fifth grade such skill has become general. 

Writing 

The process of writing, when carried along with the accom- 
plishment of reading, constitutes an added complexity in gaining 
the symbols of language. 

1. Can form no letters. — This disability may be due to one 
or both of two things. The child may be unable to analyze 
and conceive so complex a thing as a written letter of the 
alphabet, or the motor control may be so poor as not to permit 
him to form letters in the usual way. 

2. Copies zvords or sentences legibly. 

3. Writes simple sentences from dictation. — Many children 
who are proficient in the second stage of the writing process 
cannot write simple sentences from dictation for several reasons. 
One is that the child's memory span is so short that he cannot 
remember even a short sentence until by repetition it has become 
very familiar to him. In this case he writes the first or second 
word and then must stop because he cannot remember the re- 
mainder. Another reason is that he may be unable to remember 
the formation of the letters, so that even though his memory 
may be of the type which can compass a sentence it lacks the 
ability to remember the symbols for recording it. A third 
reason, often found, is the child's inabifity to learn to spell. 
Though he may be able to remember the sentence and to write 
from memory all the letters of the alphabet he fails bcause 
he cannot remember the spelling which has been taught him, 
and he has no phonetic ability to enable him to proceed in- 
dependently. 

4. Originates sentences to write. — Many defective children 
who are unable to talk or discuss the subjects of their experi- 



ISO CLARA SCHMITT 

ence with originality, cannot put over into written form any 
sentence not dictated to them. 

5. Can write a letter or composition. — This stage, of course, 
tests much more than the mere abihty to write. As indicated 
in four, many defective children can relate verbally as much 
as a letter or composition would contain, and have mastered 
the mechanics of writing, but they cannot combine the two 
operations. This is a test of the ability to make use of this tool 
for the practical purposes of social life. 

Arithmetic 

The simplest mathematical processes are the result of general- 
ized abstractions. With arithmetical processes there is the 
necessity for the use of symbols to express such generalizations. 
These symbols do not stand in one to one relationship with a 
particular object or experience. The symbols of reading and 
writing bear such a relationship to the things they represent. 
The symbols of arithmetic are the expression of a conception. 
The symbols for the counting series, for instance, cannot relate 
to a particular thing or experience, but to particularized aspects 
of that abstract quality of universal relationships which we 
denominate as number. The simplest process relating to the 
number relationship is that of counting. It is the first accom- 
plishment of the child in acquiring number ideas. 

1. Counts (a) As a verbal series merely. Frequently the 
very young child learns the counting series before he learns 
that this series may be related to a series of objects. Many 
defective children who have been in the school for some period 
of time know the counting series but fail to relate it tO' a series 
of objects. When asked to count a row of like objects, such 
a child repeats, "i, 2, 3," etc., and touches the objects in some 
other order than that of the counting series. 

(b) Counts objects such as lines, beads, etc., serially arranged. 
This is the second step in the learning of the counting process. 

2. Can make addition and subtraction combinations. — Many 
defective children can count objects, but this is as far as their 
arithmetical accomplishment goes. They cannot represent an 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 151 

arithmetical situation such as, "If you have two pennies and I 
give you two more, then how many will you have?" Normal 
children of the age found in the first grade, from six to seven 
years, are able to represent such a situation and to make the 
combination correctly, though the attempt is not made to teach 
them the process formally. [Chicago] 

(a) With objects. The young child who has learned to 
count and who has not yet had sufficient experience with num- 
ber relationships to have made their combinations automatic in 
his memory learns to make a concrete representation of the 
situation for himself. If you ask him how much is five and 
four, he can represent the situation with lines or by counting 
his fingers or some other such device. Many defective children 
never get beyond this stage in making number combinations. 
They learn very few combinations, to such an extent as to make 
them automatic. On the other hand, many defective children 
learn number combinations as a mere mechanical memory 
process. If you ask such a child how much is five and four, 
he answers quickly. However, upon being asked a combina- 
tion which has not become automatic with him he is quite 
mute and has no way of solving his problem. 

(b) Can make combinations only if put in the form of con- 
crete ideas, such as, "If you have three pennies and I give you 
two more, how many will you have then?" Many defective 
children will remain mute if you ask how much is three and 
two, but if you put it in some such form as this they can rep- 
resent the situation to themselves and answer correctly. It is per- 
haps needless to say that this type of defective child never can 
learn very many mathematical combinations, since he must always 
depend upon the imagery of concrete experience to carry him 
through the process. With the normal child of the first grade 
this process is at first necessary, but he soon becomes able to 
cast aside this cumbersome method for (c). 

(c) Can make combinations with symbols, either written or 
oral, unaided by objects or the imagery of (b). 

(d) Can do problems involving the processes of (i) "carry- 
ing" and (2) "borrowing." Many defective children who can 



152 CLARA SCHMITT 

add a long column cannot, however, accomplish the added com- 
plexity of "carrying" when adding numbers of more than two 
columns. Many who can accomplish this feat can not go on 
and accomplish the still more complex process of "borrowing" 
in subtraction. 

3. Multiplication tables. 

(a) Knows the table as a series merely. With this type of 
accomplishment the child learns to repeat the table, but if items 
are taken out of their order in the table he is unable to answer 
unless he again begins at the beginning and repeats the table 
up to the desired item. His learning in this case is one of 
mechanical memory of the type presented by the learning of 
nonsense syllables. 

(b) In the early stages of learning the multiplication 
table, before the combinations have become automatic, the nor- 
mal child shows his appreciation of the mathematical meaning 
involved by counting from the last familiar item of the table 
to gain the next unfamiliar one. The defective child who is not 
adept at mechanical learning learns to use this method and then 
continues with it indefinitely. 

(c) Knows the table with the items taken at random. 

4. Can do the processes of (a) multiplication, (b) short divi- 
sion, (c) long division. 

5. Fractions. — The work with fractions as it is given in the 
fifth grade [Chicago] is dependent upon complex processes 
which can be represented by symbols only. All the arithmetical 
processes previous to stage four are of such simplicity as to be 
capable of concrete representation step by step. The processes 
of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division may be 
learned as mere mechanical processes which may have no rela- 
tion in the child's mind either to concrete situations, or to con- 
crete situations symbolically represented. Many defective chil- 
dren learn so complex a process as long division but never 
can apply it to the working out of concrete problems. It is 
to them merely a mechanical process and may indicate only 
an ability to learn a process of such complexity. The work 
with fractions comprises a set of processes of such great com- 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 153 

plexity that it is hardly possible to learn them in the mechanical 
way that long division can be learned. It employs a symbolism 
of which each individual item represents a complex concrete 
situation. For instance, to be able to understand such a term 
as two-thirds one must have gone through the concrete process 
of dividing up the unit, and so on to the final comprehending 
of this whole process in the symbol, 2/3. One cannot, how- 
ever, in the simplest type of problem employing the use of 
f tactions, carry on the concrete imagery as he can with the 
simple number processes discussed above. The various sets of 
concrete situations represented by the problem, ^ plus ^, can- 
not be kept in mind to aid in determining the result. One must 
carry on the process with a series of symbolically represented 
relationships in which each symbol comprises the summing up of 
a complex situation. The further work of school arithmetic, 
such as percentage, etc., is only an application of the number 
processes and relationships learned up to this point. 

6. Practical problems. — Many defective children can learn 
number combinations and processes up to the stage of fractions 
but are unable to apply these processes to the solution of the 
practical problems of every day life. The simplest of such 
problems are : 

(a.) One-step problems, such as, "If one pencil costs two 
cents, what will three pencils cost?" Many defective children 
who can solve a problem of this grade of complexity cannot 
reverse the process when it is put, "If three pencils cost six 
cents what will be the cost of one pencil?" Many who can 
accomplish this feat cannot go further and represent to them- 
selves and solve the problem, "If five pencils cost ten cents 
what will three pencils cost?" The control of attention, neces- 
sary from the beginning to the end of the problem, and the 
passing over from one step to another to the final third step 
and the result is too much for them. 

(b.) Make change.^ — Many defective children can learn to 
make change only in so far as the conditions of their lives have 
given them experience. They may be able to make change 
with a dime or a quarter, or whatever sum it may have been 



154 CLARA SCHMITT 

frequently their fortune to have to expend, but are helpless 
if given any other sum or combination of coins. The extent 
to which the change making ability may be learned through 
concrete experience is illustrated by the case of a boy of four- 
teen in the third grade of the public school. He was accustomed 
to drive the carriage which conveyed guests from the railroad 
station to his father's small hotel. He could tell very quickly, 
for instance, what thirteen twenty-five cent fares would amount 
to, but he could not do the arithmetical work of the third grade 
in the school, nor could he do other types of making change. 

The normal child during this period of learning money com- 
binations uses his arithmetic to help out the process for un- 
familiar combinations. If he cannot "mentally" manage such 
a problem as involves the expenditure of five cents and three 
cents of a quarter and find the remainder, he applies his knowl- 
edge of arithmetical processes to a solution of the problem. 
The defective child gets his method from oft repeated specific 
experience with such problems. 

(c) Tell time. — The children of the second grade in the 
public schools are taught time units and their relationship. The 
accomplishment of telling time by the clock is one of too great 
complexity for defective children of the normal second grade 
age. Very few attain it at all. 

Results of Arithmetic Tests for Normal and Defective 

Children 

A series of tests was arranged in conformity with the pre- 
ceding discussion. The children who took the tests were the same 
group as took the reading tests discussed above. As was men- 
tioned they were chosen for their ability to read. It is possible 
that the arithmetic ability in a few cases was not satisfactory. 

The tests for each grade were arranged to conform first to 
the requirements of the curriculum of 1912 for the Chicago 
schools. In addition to the test which would show the child's 
acquisition of the required work for his grade one or more 
additional problems were given to test his ability to make an 
independent use of his mechanical acquisition. It was attempted 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 155 

to use for this additional test such problems as would either 
involve the next step to be made in the acquisition of number 
conceptions, or would make such use of what had just been 
learned as was not specifically taught in the work of the grade. 
This attempt was not entirely successful due to variations of 
procedure in different schools. In one school more of fractions 
was taught in the fourth grade than was required in the curric- 
ulum. In another school a much larger experience in number 
work was given the first grade than was the rule in the other 
schools. For this reason the following series of tests would 
need to be given to a larger number of schools, or arranged 
with close reference to the work of one school and given to all 
the children in that school, before definite statements as to the 
reasoning ability of normal children in the realm of mathematics 
could be made. 

In giving the additional or reasoning tests the child was given 
every opportunity to show his maximum ability to think. If his 
first answer was wrong he was told so and asked to try again 
to think out his problem. This was repeated until it was apparent 
that he was unable to think the problem out correctly. When a 
correct answer was obtained by such means he was recorded in 
the successful column only after he had proved by his answer 
to other questions that the result was a thoughtful one and not 
a fortunate guess. He was asked to tell how he had gotten 
the answer, — the demand was usually put in this form : "How 
do you know that is right?" If he could not give his method 
clearly enough he was given another problem of the same kind 
with the numbers changed. Occasionally a child finds the right 
method for himself but is timid about explaining it, or is unable 
to formulate it. 

It is needless to say that no hint of the right method for 
solving a problem was ever given. Much encouragement to 
the effect that he could get the problem if he took plenty of 
time to think about it was given. The child was always told 
to take as much time as he needed to think his problem out care- 
fully. Each child was tested alone except for the third, fourth 
and fifth srrade written work. 



156 CLARA SCHMITT 

The tests for the various grades were arranged as follows: 

Grade I 
Required work.* — ^"Objects are counted, using cardinal num- 
bers. They are compared to develop notions of inequality 
and equality. . . . All the work of the grade is objective and 
chiefly oral." It is further recommended that the work be 
done incidental to the other activities of the grade, drawing, 
construction work, etc. 

1. (Test for required work.) Counting a row of like objects. 

2. (Additional.) If you have three pennies in your hand 
and I give you two more how many will you have then?" 

If the child hesitates he is directed to find out by counting his 
fingers or by making marks. He is given much encouragement 
to do this. Some children will say they do not know how to 
find out in this way, but if one keeps on with the coaxing 
encouragement they will do it. The small child is often diffident 
about trying an untaught or unusual thing. 

Grade II 
Required work. — " ... to read and write numbers of one and 
two orders ; to read time by the clock to hour, half-hour, quarter- 
hour; to answer any of the forty-five addition and subtraction 
facts : 



I 

I 


2 

I 


3 

I 


4 
I 


5 
I 


6 

I 


7 
I 


8 

I 


9 
I 


2 
2 


3 

2 


4 

2 


5 

2 


6 

2 


7 

2 


8 

2 


9 
2 


3 
3 


4 
3 


5 
3 


6 
3 


7 
3 


8 
3 


9 
3 


4 
4 


S 

4 


6 

4 


7 
4 


8 

4 


9 

4 


5' 
5 


6 

5 


7 
S 


8 

5 


9 

5 


6 
6 


7 
6 


8 
6 


9 
6 


7 

7 


8 

7 


9 

7 


8 
8 


9 
8 


9 
9 



. . . To make change within one dollar; to recognize related 
units of measure, such as inch, foot; minute, hour, day, week; 
pint, quart ; cent, nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar, dollar ; to use 
the tables of two's and three's; to count by two's to 24 and by 
three's to 36 ; to tell half of any multiple of two to 24 and one- 
third of any multiple of three to 36." 

*Chicago Public Schools, Course of Study for the Elementary Schools, 1912. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 157 

It may be remarked that the use of the half-dollar and dollar 
are not attempted by most second grade teachers since the num- 
ber facts to be taught make no higher combinations than twenty. 

1. (Test for required work.) How much is 7 and 8? How 
much is 9 and 6? (Additional.) How much is 10 and 11 ? 

2. (Required.) H you had 10 pennies and spent 6 how many 
would be left? 

3. (Required.) a. If you had a dime and spent 4 cents for 
candy and 2 cents for chewing gum, how much money would 
you have left? b. If you had a quarter and spent 5 cents for 
candy and 3 cents for an apple, how much moneny would be 
left? 

4. (Additional.) If 5 boys are in this room and 3 boys are 
in the other room, how many boys would have to go from this 
room into the other room so that then there would be the same 
number in each room? 

Because it is often difficult for the child to keep so long a 
problem in mind with one repetition, the problem is always 
repeated immediately as follows. Do you see how it is ; we have 
5 boys here and 3 over there, but we don't want it that way, we 
want the same number in each room; how many would we have 
to send over there? 

If the answer to this problem is correctly given the proof of 
a correct process lies in the answer to the question. How many 
will he in each room then? 

5. (Additional.) a. If i pencil costs 2 cents, what will 4 
pencils cost? b. If 5 pencils cost 10 cents, what will i pencil 
cost? (As may be seen by the table below, this problem is not 
one within the powers of the second grade child.) 

Grade III 

Required work. — Miscellaneous problems, involving one step 
only and making use of the units of measure previously studied — 
inch, foot ; minute, hour, day, week ; pint, quart ; cent, nickel, 
dime, quarter, half dollar, dollar; pound, dozen — and in addition 
the yard, peck and bushel. 

All tables to and including twelves ; problems involving linear 



IS8 CLARA SCHMITT 

measure; areas of rectangles found by drawing and counting, 
using the square foot and square yard; fundamental operations 
with United States money, omitting division; reading and writ- 
ing numbers including five orders ; fundamental operations, mul- 
tiplier or divisor not to exceed two figures. 

1. (Test for required work.) Multiplication Table. Care 
was taken to determine whether the table was rendered as a 
feat of mechanical memory more or less per^fect, as is sometimes 
the case with defective children, or whether the child had a cor- 
rect mathematical conception of the table. The child who under- 
stands what the table means, when he comes to an unfamiliar 
item of the table knows that he can count from the last familiar 
item to gain the required unfamiliar one. 

2. (Test for required work.) Fundamental operations: 

a. 2813 b. 3421 c. 12)36281 

—1482 X 26 



3. If you had a dollar and spent 47 cents how much money 
would be left? This problem was used to see if when in any 
case the problem was too difficult a one to do "mentally" a 
higher process than the one resorted to by the second grade in 
such situations was used. The second grade child could only 
make marks to find the answer to an unfamiliar combination. 
The third grade child has the advantage of the process of sub- 
traction with "borrowing." 

4. (Additional.) If five pencils cost ten cents, what will three 
pencils cost? 

5. (Additional.) a. If you had twelve cents and lost half 
of your money, how much would be left? b. If you had fifteen 
cents to divide equally among three boys how much would each 
one get? 

Grade IV 

Required work. Area of rectangles, dimensions limited to 
like integral units. 

Time, including the number of days in each month; methods of 
proving the 'fundamental operations, terminology used in funda- 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 159 

mental operations; reading and writing numbers of not more 
than two periods; problems, introducing bills, involving the 
common measures previously studied and using incidentally the 
half, third, fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, twelfth, and sixteenth, 
involving no remainders ; areas of irregular plane surfaces which 
may be divided easily into rectangles; perimeters of rectilinear 
plane figures; mile and rod; multiplication: multipHer, and any 
two- or three-digit number; proofs; division: divisor, any two- 
or three-digit number; proofs. 

1. (Test for required work.) 48)64911. 

2. (a) y2oii2= (b) y3 0ii2= (c) }i oi 12 = 

(d) %0{l2 = 

3. (Additional.) a. Which is larger a half of something or 
a third of the same thing? b. A third of something or a fourth 
of the same thing, c. A fifth of something or a tenth of the 
same thing? 

In general a correct answer is given 'for a, but frequently a 
wrong one for h. The problem may then be put as follows: 
which way would you get the largest piece, if you were one 
of the three boys who divided a pie among themselves or if 
you were one of four boys? The normal child gives the correct 
answer. Then : If you were one of three boys what part would 
your piece be? If you were one of four boys? Which, then, 
is the larger, a third or a fourth? The normal child quickly 
sees the principle of such problems and answers similar follow- 
ing ones correctly. The defective child, though he may be brought 
to decide correctly over and over again to which group he should 
belong to get the larger piece, makes the same type of error with 
the next similar problem abstractly presented. 

4. (Additional.) If you had twelve cents and lost two-thirds 
of your money, how much would you then have? This prob- 
lem contains two new things; a consideration of two-thirds, 
and the use of it as a quantity in a problem. If the child hesi- 
tated long or seemed nonplussed by the complexity of his prob- 
lem he was asked, How much is two-thirds of twelve? If a 
correct answer was obtained, then the further encouragement 
was given in this form: Then tell me, if you lose two-thirds 
of your twelve cents how much is left? Of nine fourth-grade 



i6o CLARA SCHMITT 

children who passed this test, four needed such encourage- 
ment. 

5. (Additional.) You had some money and lost two-thirds of 
it and then there was eight cents left, how much did you have 
at first? 

This problem, as may be seen by Table XLVI, is too diffi- 
cult for the fourth grade. 

Grade V 

First half-year {semester) of the grade. Fractions. — Con- 
cretely and orally; fractional equivalents; sum or difference of 
any two fractions within the limits of halves and sixteenths. 

Second half-year {semester) of the grade. Fractions. — Addi- 
tion, subtraction, multiplication, division, comparison, and ratio 
of fractions. Suggestion: fractions arranged in as many dif- 
ferent pairs as possible : K + ^;/^ — ^;>^-^^;^ com- 
pared with ^ (ratio) ; ^, compared with >4 ; ^ of ^; ^ of >4, 

1. (Test for required work.) /^ + ^ = 

2. (Additional.) If four dozen apples cost $1.50, what will 
three apples cost? 

Table XLVI shows the number of children of each grade 
who succeeded with the tests as far as each individual was able 
to go. Each child was given all the problems included in higher 
grades with which there was a possibility of success. Each grade 
was given such problems of lower grades as were not implicit 
in the work of the grade being tested. 

Examination of the table shows that with each grade success 
was almost universal with the required work of the grade. The 
numbers in bold type at the head of each column indicate the 
problems testing required work. The few failures in required 
work may have been due to the fact that the children were chosen 
for satisfactory reading ability. The results of the tests with 
defective children are given first in the absolute numbers and in 
the line below reduced to a scale of seventeen. The table shows 
that about two-thirds of the defective children were able to 
accomplish the required work of. the second grade; one-third had 
learned the multiplication table and one-sixth had learned to 
multiply. The success of the defective children with the addi- 



X I 






P^ 






o 



o 



O 



















t^ On 






VOOO t^ tN. 
IT) l-I * 









\d 






O 



tn 



3 



o 



> 



> 



Q 



i ° 

> S <u 

4) 



i62 CLARA SCHMITT 

tional work of the grades where it is indicated does not mean 
that the mental process of such individuals was equivalent to that 
of the children belonging to those grades. An uncritical cross 
section type of test may lead one to infer that such is the case. 
It is in watching the defective child in the schoolroom that one 
comes to realize that he does not, for instance, originate the pro- 
cess of counting marks to gain new number combinations but the 
process must be drilled into his mind with more or less repetition. 

The youngest of the defective children had had four times as 
much school experience as the first grade children, and twice as 
much as the second grade children. It is probable that the 
youngest of these children and certainly the older ones, had 
had so much experience with the money problems of the second 
grade, for instance, as to make the result in effect that of drill. 

Reference to the table shows that problem 5b under the second 
grade belongs to third grade abilities. The second grade child 
has no knowledge of division. Many second grade children at- 
tempted to solve the problem by an arrangement of marks but 
became confused in the process and gave up. 

Methods of Solving Problems.- — The first grade child finds 
out combinations under ten by counting his fingers. A few can 
be induced to make marks on paper. This grade, however, uses 
pencil but little and this probably accounts for the child's dis- 
inclination to use this method. Care was always observed in 
the examiner's encouragement of the child to use the pencil to 
stop short of actual showing this new method of representing his 
number situation. The first grade child fails with the finger 
method for combinations above ten since he has no more fingers 
and must use some a second time in the process of gaining such a 
combination. Though he attempts to do so the process is too 
complex and he fails to get a correct result. Older children who 
must resort to counting to find large combinations can use the 
finger method success'fully. The first grade child fails in sub- 
traction of numbers above five because of the difficulty he finds 
in using the forefinger of one hand both to count and to represent 
one of the items of his problem. 

Of the second grade children nine could give the combinations 
of the first problem automatically, that is they did not need 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 163 

to count. The others counted either fingers, marks, or silently. 
In the method of silent counting the child did not have the com- 
bination so thoroughly learned as to do away with counting 
altogether, but he could represent the situation "mentally," by 
means o'f some type of imagery not reduced to concrete means 
such as marks. 

Of the defective children five could make such number com- 
binations automatically. 

The second grade child does the problem of 3a and 3b with 
the use of marks. The failures with 3b were due to the neces- 
sary complexity of many marks, roblem 5a was solved by count- 
ing by 2's or by making marks of four groups of two each. 

Each second grade child was given problem 3 of the 
third grade group. Each child began industriously to make a 
hundred marks, but because of the length of time necessary 
for such a procedure was not permitted to finish the problem. 

The third grade children had for the most part made the 
multiplication tables of 4's and 7's, the tables used for the test, 
automatic with only an occasional stop to count up for an un- 
famihar item. Of the defective children six had gained so 
much facility with the tables. Twelve defective children could 
recite the tables correctly by counting up from each last item. 
Some of the defective children had a more or less complete 
mechanical acquaintance with the tables, but when memory failed 
they broke down with no method of finding the unfamiliar item. 

The third grade child solves problem 3 either "mentally" 
or by means of subtraction. The failures of the two third 
grade children were due to the complexity of the double 
"borrowing." 

Problem 4 is too difficult a one for the third grade, but is 
more nearly suited to fourth grade abilities. 

Of the fourth grade children the five of the first school 
tested had had little of the required work with fractions. Their 
experience had been only with the fraction one-half. The three 
failures with 2a, 2b, and 2c were in this group, and consequently 
the three failures with problem three; all of the five failed with 
problem four. Problem five is too difficult for the fourth grade, 
but is suitable to fifth grade abilities. 



XI 

FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE MENTAL CLASSIFICA- 
TION OF CLINIC CASES 

Throughout this study the reaction of feeble-minded children 
seen at the clinic has been compared with that of the normal 
children of the schools. There does not exist any fixed accepted 
standard, except the arbitrary one laid down by the Binet tests, 
for distinguishing the feeble-minded from the mentally normal. 
There come to any general clinic many different types of cases 
of social deviation. In the Juvenile Court Clinic the cases are of 
moral deviation; in the public school clinic the cases are 
those which show unsatisfactory reaction to the school situa- 
tion, of conduct or of progress in mastering the subject-matter 
of the curriculum. It is the function of the clinic to determine 
from what cause this social deviation springs. The causes 
may be in the mentality, the environment, the physical condition, 
or some peculiarity of individual interest or temperament. One 
or all of these may combine to produce a deviation which brings 
the child into the clinic for classification and advice. 

The first duty of the psychological clinic is, naturally, to 
separate the normal in innate mental ability from the defective. 
The lower grades of feeble-mindedness are apparent to every 
one. The defective reaction of the imbecile to almost every con- 
ceivable situation is so marked as never to be overlooked, at 
least after the child is five or six years of age. There is, how- 
ever, a group at the upper end of the moron class which is not 
so easily detected. 

This type is perceptually bright; can reproduce past experi- 
ences in conversation and so give a superficial impression of 
brightness; is sometimes even loquacious; may be given to 
bragging a bit and so give the impression of possessing those 
powers of imagination from which high standards of action 
are derived; are ready in promises of good behavior; can orien- 
tate themselves in a large city and take proper physical care 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 165 

of themselves among its dangers; if working, they can often 
perform satisfactorily, certain types of routine work sufficiently 
well to make them self-supporting. How to separate this class 
from that large class of children who are not defective but 
backward, pedagogically considered, frequently becomes a diffi- 
cult task for the clinic psychologist. Holmes (21) discusses 
this problem under the title o'f "Curable and Incurable Backward- 
ness." He says: ''If a child is curably backward, he, by that 
fact alone, enters into a great class of children retarded from 
any cause whatsoever; if he is incurably backward, he enters 
into another great class commonly called feeble-minded or 
mentally defective. Such a distinction is fraught with the 
gravest practical importance for the child and all concerned 
with him. The determination of this vital step is one of the 
most important in making a diagnosis. Sufficient is it now to 
say that the distinction does not rest upon any symptom-com- 
plex or appearance of the child alone. Curably backward and 
incurably backward children often look exactly alike; know 
about the same amount of school lore ; act about alike in society, 
and sometimes even, — if there is any advantage either way, 
the incurably backward or feeble-minded child has it." 

Holmes' method of determination mainly rests upon the de- 
velopmental history of the child in connection with his present 
physical condition. If he finds in the past history nothing to 
lead one to suspect that the child has suffered a brain lesion, 
and if the present physical condition is one which needs correc- 
tion, he is classed as curably backward. 

This basis of classification, however, removes the case from 
the field of psychology and places it in the field of medicine. 
The child's developmental history is certainly of very great im- 
portance for the clinical psychologist, but no such history, how- 
ever full it may be of suggestions of brain lesion, can establish 
the extent of such lesions or their effect upon mental function- 
ing. It is in the province of the psychologist to so investigate 
and analyze the child's mental complex as to show the quality and 
extent of his mental defectiveness if such exists. The line, or 
as Tredgold terms it, "the gulf" which divides the highest 



i66 CLARA SCHMITT 

mental defective from the normal has been indicated by various 
writers who have become acquainted with this class where its 
individuals have gained entrance into institutions for the feeble- 
minded. The standardizations of various authors have been 
brought together by Holmes (21 ) : 

By Goddard (15). Moron: 

High-grade : can do fairly complicated work with only 
occasional or no supervision; can run simple machinery, take 
care of animals; only unable to plan. 

By Barr (22). Imbecile: 

High-grade: trainable in manual and intellectual arts. 

By Binet (23). Feeble-minded: 

Every child is feeble-minded who knows how to communicate 
with his fellows by word and by writing but who exhibits a 
retardation of two or three years, in the course of his studies, 
unless that retardation should be on account of insufficient 
training. 

By Tredgold (24), Feeble-minded: 

First-grade : can make tolerable progress in elementary 
school work; can write a simple letter, read children's books, 
can perform simple arithmetical exercises mentally. Can do 
good manual work. 

In the above definitions Goddard and Tredgold evidently have 
in mind a qualitative distinction between the high-grade defective 
and the normal. Barr and Binet indicate that the distinction 
may be quantitative. Goddard emphasizes the qualitative distinc- 
tion in his last clause, "only unable to plan." It is this distinction 
which the writer uses as the dividing line between the normal 
and the defective. In the foregoing discussion of tests where 
the types of reaction may be distinguished as those of planned, 
trial and error, and chance the last two have always been 
found to be characteristic o'f the feeble-minded class and cases are 
classified as such if their invariable reaction to tests is below 
that of the planned or consciously controlled reaction type and 
when the child's history is in conformity with the mental plane 
the psychological tests determine for him. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 167 

The histories of these individuals show them quite lacking in 
the ability to plan their conduct in conformity with the complex 
requirements of civilized life in such a way as to make them really 
a part of the social class in which they may be found. The child's 
reaction to the home situation, the school situation, and his 
type of moral delinquency show, as well as the mental tests, 
the inability of this type of child to plan or reason. The parents 
of such children complain of a lack of responsibility of the 
child in the home life. He cannot be trusted as the other chil- 
dren to go on errands or to conduct himself properly in other 
ways. The teacher says that he does not learn and makes poor 
progress in the school. When his acquirements of school lore 
are examined, it is found that he has been capable of learning 
more or less in a mechanical way; he makes some degree of 
progress in reading and arithmetic but the working over of any 
learned . content to fit the needs of a new situation is beyond 
his ability. 

The arithmetic gained by the child who may be classed as 
mentally defective is merely that of a mechanical nature. Such 
applications as he can make of his knowledge is small in extent 
and usually the result of oft repeated bits of specific experience. 

However much he may be able to learn to recognize printed 
words, he is not able to use reading to an appreciable extent 
in gaining organized bodies of knowledge. The use of reading 
and arithmetic tests and other tests involving the use of symbols 
can be made to show the extent to which he is lacking in the 
ability to use abstract or symbolic materials of thought. The 
use of reading, writing, and arithmetic as tests of mental ability 
are discussed above. 

That part of the child's history which relates to the school 
must take into consideration grade with reference to age and 
attainments with reference to the curriculum. One finds many 
large defective children in grades a year or more behind that 
which corresponds with the chronological age, but at the same 
time far in advance of their attainments in school subjects. 

The high grade defective child o'ften becomes a dilinquent 
of a more or less serious character in the neighborhood, because 



i68 CLARA SCHMITT 

he is not able to apply to his own conduct such formal rules of 
conduct concerning the rights of others, as he may have been 
taught in the school or other social agencies. 

The type of delinquency or other social reaction shows, fre- 
quently, a correlation with mental ability as determined by other 
tests. The defective delinquent is usually the follower of a more 
capable companion who plans the escapades in which they en- 
gage. The delinquent is a tool or a dupe in the plan of others. 
The defective's type of delinquency is simple so far as its mental 
content is concerned, however serious it may be in its social 
or economic aspects. The fourteen-year-old boy who robbed 
his mother of a sum of hoarded money, and then tied himself 
and did other things to simulate an attack from the outside 
was not a mental defective. The twelve-year-old boy who or- 
ganized and led a gang of older boys in a robbery of a large 
jewelry store, escaping successfully with the booty was not a 
defective. The fourteen-year-old boy who on several occasions 
went into unguarded houses and wantonly destroyed things, 
repeating the offense, though each time he was apprehended 
and brought before the Juvenile Court was a defective. The 
boy who at fourteen years of age had appeared before the court 
fourteen times for robbery, but who each time carried out the 
plan of some other boy who escaped upon the approach of 
the police was a defective; as was the boy of twelve who en- 
gaged in a robbery of large extent with some others and selected 
as his part of the booty all the pennies of the collection, leaving 
to the others the bills of large denomination. 

Such popular types of evidence discussed above can be ac- 
cepted of course only as indicative of a possible mental status. 
They must be used with judgment. The parent may place his 
expectations of responsibility too high; the child's progress in 
the school may be influenced by other factors than that of 
mental ability; and many children in whom there is no hint 
of mental defectiveness become delinquent. Formal tests of 
mental ability must exercise their function either of corroborating 
or disputing the social judgment. 

A formal test of mental ability on the other hand must 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 169 

always be carefully evaluated with reference to the situation 
in which the child is found. Such care is especially demanded 
under the conditions of a clinic for delinquents. The examiner 
must also be careful to distinguish a type of reaction due to 
temperament from that due to defective mental ability. The 
exceedingly shy child or the child who lacks confidence in him- 
self may react to tests in a different way than his mental ability, 
uninfluenced by such temperament, might permit. An emotional 
upheaval such as a delinquent may suffer is sometimes suc- 
ceeded by such mental apathy as prevents normal reaction to 
the tests which require judgment or a high degree of control 
of attention. One such case was that of a boy of sixteen who 
had graduated from the eighth grade with honors, had done 
the work satisfactorily of a trusted errand boy in a large bank, 
was a reader of classical types of literature and had organized 
bodies of historical and geographical data gained from his 
reading, but failed in nearly all formal mental tests given him. 
The classification of this boy's mental ability could not be based 
on his reactions to formal tests. 

One must also be able to distinguish unfavorable reactions 
due to the deteriorations or disturbances caused by certain men- 
tal or nervous diseases from those due to mental subnormality or 
defectiveness. 

Thus school and social history and the evidence of formal tests 
determine whether or not the child is normal or below in mental 
ability. If his reactions go to show that his ability to learn 
is only mechanical; that he is not capable of making new appli- 
cations of the content of previous learning, he is classed as 
mentally defective, or, as Holmes terms it, "incurably back- 
ward." If he is classed as normal in mental ability, then, the 
cause of his defective reactions to the school and social situa- 
tion must be sought in physical conditions, social environment, 
individual peculiarity of temperament or interest or mental com- 
plex. Each one of these possibilities opens a new realm for 
psychological investigation. 

This, then, is the proposed criterion for discriminating the 
normal from the subnormal or mentally defective. In order to 



170 CLARA SCHMITT 

establish valid standards in the classification of individual cases 
th physician and the psychologist must cooperate. We need more 
knowledge than is now available of the mental effects of certain 
curable and incurable physical conditions and defects. Such 
problems as the mental effects of malnutrition, or the effect 
upon certain learning complexes of defective vision and hearing 
require careful observation and correlation over long periods of 
time of the mental and physical functionings for their solution. 
Until much more of such knowledge is available many individ- 
uals can be only tentatively classed as curably or incurably 
backward. 

This basis for the determination of the mentally defective 
is in conformity with the view of Stern (25) in his discussion 
of "The Nature of Intelligence." He says : 

"Naturally, we cannot begin our work without a preliminary 
definition of intelligence, however provisional it may be. And 
this definition must be neither too broad nor too narrow. 

"Many psychiatrists have used a definition of intelUgence 
that is too broad. They use intelligence, in fact, to include 
mental attainments of all kinds, all those mental qualities, then, 
that are not volitional or emotional. If this position be taken, 
it follows, evidently that the examination of immediate memory, 
of ability to learn, of range of information, of fidelity of re- 
port, or of discriminative sensitivity is just as much a con- 
stituent part of intelligence as the examination of ability to 
apprehend, to synthetize, of capacity to judge, to conclude, to 
define, to criticize, etc. Again, a question that is very important 
for us, viz. : to what extent intelligence really enters into these 
first-named activities, and whether and in what way it shows 
signs of its presence in them, becomes absurd. But the ad- 
vance made in the recent development of intelligence testing, 
in contrast to the uncritical determination of mental level by 
any sort of questions and tests, consists in the fact that we 
not only limit intelligence by setting it over against the emotive 
and volitional nature of an individual, but also ascribe to it a 
definitely restricted place within the mental ifunctions. 

"This delimitation of the sphere of intelligence that is even 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS i/i 

now essential cannot be affected, in my opinion, from a phe- 
nomenological, but only from a teleological point of view. In 
fact, my definition is this: 

"Intelligence is a general capacity of an individual consciously 
to adjust his thinking to new requirements : it is general mental 
adaptability to new problems and conditions of life. 

"This definition differentiates intelligence clearly from other 
mental capacities. 

"The fact that the adjustment is made to the new distinguishes 
intelligence from memory whose fundamental teleological fea- 
ture is the conservation and utilization of conscious contents 
already given. 

"The fact of adaptation, again, emphasizes the dependence 
of the performance upon external factors, on the problems and 
demands of life, and thus distinguishes intelligence from genius, 
whose nature is to create the new spontaneously. 

"Finally, the 'fact that the capacity is a general capacity 
distinguishes intelligence from talent the characteristic of which 
is precisely the limitation of efficiency to one kind of content. 
He is intelligent, on the contrary, who is able easily to effect 
mental adaptation to new requirements under the most varied 
conditions and in the most varied fields. If talent be a material 
efficiency, intelligence is a formal efficiency. 

"I trust that these distinctions may serve to lessen the con- 
fusion that has been current. It is not so long ago, indeed, 
that in psychiatry 'information tests' were carried on as 'in- 
telligence tests,' thereby contfusing memory and intelligence. 
And we often, even nowadays, find intelligence, and talent con- 
fused in everyday life. In school, for instance, a teacher of a 
special subject like mathematics, who perceives the special gift 
of a pupil in that field, may easily come to believe without further 
evidence that this pupil has general ability, or in other words, 
to rate him as an intelligent pupil. 

But we should not interpret this delimitation to mean the 
erection of sharply distinct faculties, as in the old faculty theory. 
Intelligence, for instance, does not function by itself and memory 
by itself; rather, every operation of memory is more or less 



172 CLARA SCHMITT 

impregnated with intellectual functions and vice versa: the ex- 
tent of this interconnection can be indicated only by the correla- 
tion of the tested symptoms. But just on account of this com- 
posite character of every actual mental process it seems to me 
that the definition of intelligence I have given above is indis- 
pensible as a regulative principle for further investigation; I 
mean that any sort of perceptive, memorial or attentive activity 
is at the same time an intelligent activity just in so far as 
it includes a new adjustment to new demands." 

With this principle for guidance a system of mental grading 
independent of age may be constructed. A child of any age 
may be on the same mental level as a child of any other age, 
though their acquisitions of knowledge due to different types 
of experience and training may be quite dissimilar. For this 
purpose further work is needed to devise such tests as are re- 
lated to the types of experience or innate development as are 
common to all children of different ages. These tests must also 
be of such character as to be adapted to the specific opportunities 
for specific experiences of the particular atypical child to be 
examined. Careful discrimination on the part of the examiner 
of the relation of the tests to experience will prevent such 
erroneous conclusions concerning the child's ability to reason 
or interpret as have been discussed above with reference to 
picture tests, definitions, etc. Tests must also be distinguished 
with reference to the two phases of mental activity which are 
concerned in a judgment of general intelligence. These are, 
as has already been intimated, the individual's rate of acquisi- 
tion of mechanical learning and his ability to apply it upon 
demand to a new situation. 

The most productive source for such study is probably that 
presented by the public school. Here all children are subjected 
to the same set of experiences; they are instructed in certain 
types of mechanical acquisitions such as the recognition of words 
and arithmetical processes which they are expected to use in 
further acquisitions of knowledge. The reactions of normal 
and atypical children to the school situation may be profitably 
analyzed for the establishment of standards of normal reaction 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 173 

to this almost universal set of stimuli, and the discrimination 
and types of defective reaction. Such work upon defective 
children as that df Chotzen (26) can be of little value until this 
has been done. The children studied by Chotzen through the 
medium of the Binet-Simon tests were selected out of the school 
and segregated in the Hilfsschule because of their defective 
or atypical reaction to the school situation. It would seem that 
it is only an analysis of this or other types of social reaction 
in connection with the many other factors of temperament, home 
or other social environment, physical condition, etc., which may 
be of value for diagnosis with reference to educational treatment 
or social or institutional classification. These other factors it 
is not now our province to discuss further than to quote from 
an article by Katzenellenbogen {2y) who enumerated many of 
them in connection with the discussion of the relation of epilepsy 
to mental tests. 

"The French psychologists, Binet and Simon, prepared this 
test primarily for the use of normal children, in order to gain 
a more exact and uniform basis for placing children in the 
corresponding school grades. The necessary assumption for the 
arrangement was the uniformity of conditions, under which a 
child of a given age was supposed to be. A child for instance, 
of the age of nine, should have according to the arrangement 
of French schools such and such knowledge; the tests were 
made a posteriori with a selection of the highest percentaged 
questions, answered by children of a given age. Having a 
practical point of view in mind, this test has been of the greatest 
value in France and could be easily applied as a routine ex- 
amination of children in any country, with the necessary 
modifications. Although native ability plays an important role 
in such a test, the training is an essential condition of the 
child's success. If a child failed, and was retarded for in- 
stance two years the Binet test would diagnose the case as 
"retarded," without giving the cause for retardation. Such a 
retardation might be due to mental dullness— an inborn con- 
dition — ^or to lack of previous educational experiences, to 
sickness, adenoids, psychopathic timidity and nervousness, or 



174 CLARA SCHMITT 

Other accidental causes. It is even possible that one should 
attribute to a child which is only one year behind his normal 
according to the Binet-Simon test an especially good native men- 
tality, as he in spite of some cause (epilepsy if or instance, as we 
shall later have the opportunity to see) has fallen no more than a 
year behind. 

"We thus see, that difficulties arise even in dealing with normal 
children and that even in public schools, this test would cause 
teachers who lack a psychological or more important even, a 
medical knowledge, to commit graver mistakes with the Binet- 
Simon test, than they otherwise would. I can however say, 
that every teac^her. — provided he is of the same sex as the 
child, — would be able, when properly instructed, to apply the 
test under one condition, that the answers should be recorded 
verbatim, scored with the aid of a stop watch. The real prob- 
lem, however should begin at this point, and every child having 
the record of failure, that is every child having the same op- 
portunity as the others, which would fail, should be turned 
over to a psychopathologist (with medical knowledge) who 
would have the task to investigate the cause. Thus applied, 
the Binet-Simon test even in its present form would be of great 
value, as it would lead to the individualisation of pedagogical 
attention and would result in proper segregation. Such a pro- 
cedure however, would under the present arrangement of the 
test, although pedagogically interesting and valuable, be of little 
use to the scientific phase of the problem. 

"The apparent success of this test with normal children led 
the French psychologists to apply it as primarily devised for 
pedagogical purposes and for the use of normal children, to 
abnormal ones. They did not even stop at the using of this 
test upon children, but thought it possible to apply it to adults 
as well. The necessary hypothesis which led them to such an 
application is a psychogenetic point of view, that imbeciles 
reach a certain maximum of development and then stop for 
ever and that theerfore, an imbecile of twenty-five years may 
be compared with a child of five, if such an individual fails 
in the test devised for a child of six. Kuelpe, justly questions 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 175 

this point of view, claiming that one has no more right to 
compare imbeciles with normal children of a certain age, than 
to claim that dwarfs are physically children who did not develop 
above a certain age. This point of view is indeed not new. 
Wildermuth tried to adapt this point of view to idiots, but failed 
to convert others to his way of thinking. Let us consider the 
case of an imbecile of eighteen, whose mental age according 
to the Binet-Simon scale is six years. As a rule such a low grade 
imbecile is far below a normal child of that age regarding adap- 
tability to new surroundings, or ability for learning or being 
trained. He may exceed on the other hand a normal child in the 
knowledge of money, counting, etc., which knowledge he has 
acquired during the twelve years of additional life. Finally, 
the sexual maturity will disclose a new life of inner psychic 
experiences unknown to the child. The same dissimilarity exists 
between a child and a dwarf, who is rather a caricature of an 
adult's body; in like manner the imbecile's mind is a caricature 
of a normal adult's mind, 

"This objection to a grading like the Binet-Simon could be 
overcome, if instead of years, a system of grading independent 
of age would be substituted. For instance a given complex of 
tests would indicate a certain grade of development. The same 
complex with graded difficulty would indicate a higher degree 
of mentality. Such a grading would necessarily be a quantitative 
one in most of the tests. The Binet test has some of its tests 
arranged in this way, such as for instance the impressibility 
test for words and digits, unfortunately without a systematic 
arrangement. In such an arrangement the grading would also 
be artificial, but it would do away with the confusion, especially 
among laymen, that imbeciles are children with a stunted 
development. 

"Imbecility is a collective diagnosis of many conditions not 
only dissimilar regarding etiology but also in its manifestations. 
It is often difficult to differentiate, where the imbecility ends 
and the normal dulness begins. Psychiatry calls imbecility an 
abnormal state of mind with a manifestation of inferior in- 
tellect, a state which is either of congenital origin or which 



176 CLARA SCHMITT 

had its origin in some pathological conditions occurring in 
earliest childhood. 

"The one diagnostically important point in imbecility is the 
impossibility of any marked improvement and the lack of the 
capacity for gaining knowledge by experience. The memory 
and ability for gaining even an extraordinary mechanical 
knowledge of facts can however be intact. I remember seeing 
in Rome, N. Y., at the Custodial Institution, an imbecile of a 
very low grade, who was able to recite the capitals of all the 
States and knew a great many historical data. These facts he 
repeated however in a parrot-like manner without inner under- 
standing. To make a diagnostical point of calling imbecile all 
those who are three years retarded in the Binet-Simon test, 
means to create a new diagnosis, only valuable in its application 
to the Binet-Simon test. There is no doubt, that there is a 
possibility of training an imbecile along some lines, where me- 
chanical knowledge or memory is concerned, so that an individual 
whose grading was dependent on mechanical appliance and 
diagnostication, after a certain training would test perhaps no 
more than a year or two behind his age after a week's training 
thus reaching the degree of backwardness or dulness. As on 
the other hand, a dementing process may set in slowly in a child 
(juvenile paralysis, dementia praecox, impossible to perceive in 
their initial stages, without mentioning epilepsy) a previously 
normal child might be classified as an imbecile. As we previously 
mentioned, imbecility is a well defined although not always an 
easy diagnosis and the Binet test is not adaptable to the making 
of a diagnosis of imbecility. Pedagogical psychologists too 
easily lose track of the fact, that imbecility is a term of path- 
ology and not simply a gradation of mental ability. Such a 
diagnosis should be left entirely to a medical psychopathologist. 
We do not make a diagnosis based on the tests alone but on the 
whole clinical picture which must correspond to the findings 
of the test." 



XII 

QUALITATIVE CLASSIFICATION OF TESTS 

In conformity with the principle of the qualitative evaluation 
of reaction to tests of mental ability the Binet-Simon, the Healy- 
Fernald and tests of reading and arithmetic are classified below 
to indicate the mental process which is concerned in the per- 
formance of the individual tests. This classification indicates 
levels of intellectual ability from the highest to the lowest levels, 
where mental defectiveness belongs. The reasons which underlie 
this classification of tests appear in the earlier discussion of 
this paper. 

Level I. (Normal Level) 

Process: reasoning or adaptation of a learned content to suit 
a changed situation. 
Tests: Counting backward. 

Criticizes absurd phrases. 

Uses three given words in a sentence. 

Interprets picture. 

Defines abstract terms. 

Derives the sense of a mixed sentence. 

Solves paper cutting test. 

Reconstructs a triangle. 

Test III, construction Puzzle "A." 

Test IV, construction Puzzle "B." 

Test V, Puzzle Box. 

Test IX, X, and XI, Code test group. 

Distinguishes between morning and afternoon, months 
of year, and date (when conception of time relationship 
is involved). 

Interprets figurative literary material. 

The use of arithmetical processes for the solution of new 
problems. 



178 CLARA SCHMITT 

Level II 
Process; Conscious choice of several possible reactions to 
correspond to certain already learned classifications. 
Tests: Compare weights. (Is not a test of sensory discrimina- 
tion, since it is the classification heavy and light which is 

determined. ) 

Distinguishes between morning and afternoon. 

Defines concrete nouns. 

Defines abstract terms. 

Compares faces from aesthetic standpoint. 

Describes picture. 

Compares two remembered objects. 

Indicates omissions in pictures. 

Problem questions. 

Gives rhymes. 

Solves problems from several given facts. 

Solves question concerning President and King. 

Summarizes observations made by Hervieu. 

Tells a story after reading. 

Use of arithmetical formulae for the solution of type 
problems. 

Level III. (High Grade Defective) 
Process; conscious choice or arrangement of material to 
correspond to a model concretely presented. 
Tests: Copies square. 
Copies lozenge. 
Game of patience. 
Indicates omission in pictures. 
Test I, Introduction Puzzle. 
Test II, Special Picture Puzzle. 

Level IV. 
Process; mechanical or rote learning. 
Tests: Tests of immediate memory. 

Test VIII, learning of arbitrary associations. 
Executes three commissions. 



STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS 179 

Naming colors. 

Counting. 

Malting change. 

Recognition of money. 

Copies drawings from memory. 

Months of year. 

Date. 

Recognition of printed words. 

Arithmetical processes. 

Levels I and II belongs to the normal grade of mental ability. 
That child is normal or socially satisfactory who can think for 
himsel'f, as indicated by the tests of Level I, or who learns 
with facility in such a way as may be indicated by the tests of 
Level II. The mental processes of the upper grades of the 
defective classes are made upon Levels III and IV. Though 
all normal individuals in every type of mental activity must at 
some time belong to Levels III and IV, it is characteristic of 
the normal type that it advances beyond this. It may be es- 
tablished as the characteristic of the defective type that he does 
not advance in a general way above these levels. Defective in- 
dividuals may vary in their ability to pass over from Level III 
into Level II in certain specific ways. The defective individual's 
activities in Level II take place only after such prolonged ex- 
perience of the specific types underlying the mental processes 
involved as to make the result finally approach that belonging 
to Level IV, mechanical or rote learning. It is in this sense 
that tests should be evaluated with reference to age and, that, 
only as age may be related to certain types of experience. 

The classification may be continued downward to include more 
fundamental processes, such as sensory discrimination, divorced 
largely from such constructive activities as are indicated in 
Level IV. 



XIII 

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STANDARDIZATION OF TESTS i8i 

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